Danny Phantom Reversal
by The Smiling Crow
Summary: Everyone knows what happened when Danny Fenton became Danny Phantom, but what would have happened if Phantom became Fenton... again... Complete story reversal.
1. Chapter 1

Hello . This will be my first long fanfic of hopefully many.

I was toying with this idea and wrote out the first few chapters early in October, but college midterms and finals prevented me from actually getting around to posting until now. Plus, the added incentive of a recent fanfic of a similar concept helped spur me along into it.

Per usual;

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom**.

…after a bunch of fanfictions doing that it seems more reasonable for the site to just put that on its cover screen "NO ONE HERE OWNS ANYTHING!". Oh well.

Enjoy!

Rated K+ for references to death and suicide (not Danny's, don't worry). Possible mild blood and violence in later chapters.

* * *

><p><span>Chapter 1<span>

Danny Phantom zoomed through the endless green swirls of the Ghost Zone. Familiar, purple doors flew in and out of his vision. His neon green eyes focused ahead as his white hair flew around wildly in a nonexistent wind. He always wondered why it did that…it's not like the Ghost Zone has air…huh.

Anyway, he had just gotten back from Technus' lair for an order his parents made. On his way back, he made a quick trip to Skulker's to pick up a soldering kit his dad let the cyborg hunter borrow for his suit. He currently had the objects jumbling together in an old sack cloth over his back.

He kept going until he approached a familiar hunk of rock floating in the green space. It was a simple two story building without many discernible features, save for the large saucer on top that said "F-nt- nWo-" in broken neon lights. The rest was destroyed in the same blast that took out the rest of the house's windows and a few chunks of charred wall.

He floated to the front door and opened it like the door was real. Everyone knew non-portal doors were mostly just for show. Any ghost could phase right through that in an instant. It was mostly just a courtesy or a habit that they enjoyed.

"Hey Mom! Dad! I'm home!" He shouted. He heard a muffled reply in the basement and headed down with the sack. His mother was currently soldering some circuits on a lab bench while his father was busy welding together some odd bits of metal.

He looked over the rest of the lab. Beakers and test tubes lay strewn about haphazardly. A few screens were wired together, displaying images ranging from graphs of electromagnetic flux and readouts of particle emission to security cam footage of convenience stores and home video footage.

He always laughed at that one.

Unlike most in the Ghost Zone, his nuclear family actually stuck together and remembered bits of their past. Not a lot, but more than most. In life, his parents had been obsessed with science; especially physics. They would always be doing random experiments in the basement to get things going. His sister Jazz was obsessed with getting into college and earning a psychology degree, so it made sense when you thought about it.

When his sister died, she was devastated about being cut-off from college before her time. Her obsession is scholastic knowledge and psychology. In a way, she's like Spectra, but younger and… sane.

When his parents died, they became fascinated with ghosts and the inter-dimensional relations between the Human Realm and the Ghost Zone. That was their obsession; discovery and exploration.

Though, no one was sure _how_ they died…

Since the Ghost Zone was free game, they spent their energies looking into the relationship between worlds. Typical, they ignore the Human World when they were alive and when they die, they're obsessed with it. Always wanting the thing out of reach…

…at the time.

It took decades of research and experiments, but they compiled their data and discovered a relationship between the worlds. They discovered that, like Natural Portals, they could induce a bridge between worlds. Hence, their greatest invention currently stuck right into a wall on the opposite side of the lab.

The Portal.

They had been working nonstop on it, asking him to run errands or pick up parts every now and then. For instance, they'd just asked him to pick up the pieces from Technus.

The teenaged ghost cleared his throat and the welding and "bzzt"ing sounds stopped as both parents looked over to him.

His father wore his usual orange HAZMAT suit and had some red welding goggles for the job at hand. He pulled up the goggles over his black and white close-cropped hair to look up at Danny. He had a greenish tinge to the ghostly aura around him.

His mom, Maddie, pulled up her goggles and hood of her teal HAZMAT suit, revealing her bright red hair. She had a blue-green tinge to the aura around her. She smiled as she noticed her son standing at the foot of the stairs. "Welcome home, Sweetie. How was Technus?"

"He's fine. He got a virus though."

His dad, Jack, perked up at that. "Excellent. This is just the opportunity we need to try out the new Phantom Virus Sweeper!" He held up a CD and small light rays seemed to radiate from it.

His wife rolled her eyes slightly. "Jack, honey, just because you put our last name in front of everything doesn't necessarily make it unique. That's just that anti-virus software we downloaded and altered to adapt to ectoplasm."

Her husband was not affected. "So? It still takes a genius mind like the Phantoms to come up with something like this. Anyone with Java can make an anti-virus, but one to work on Ghosts?" He brandished the CD again.

Danny chuckled at his family's antics. They couldn't remember their last name all the way, but from the sign out front and vague bits of memory, it sounded like "Phantom", so they adopted that as the new family name. Over the years it stuck and they were known as the Phantoms.

He laid down the sack of components and let his parents rummage through it before heading back upstairs. He passed by his sister's room. She was currently floating a few inches over her bed, reading a book while simultaneously listening to something through her headphones. He often wondered if there was just a CPU under her red hair instead of an ectoplasmic brain. Seriously! How could she remember all of those things?

He kept going into his own ectoplasmically recreated bedroom and plopped himself down on the bed. He stared at the ceiling for a while, bored out of his mind, before getting up and looking at himself in the mirror.

Of all of the family, he was the weird one. He was pretty sure he didn't have white hair or green eyes when he was alive, but he got them instead. Everyone remembered their original appearance and how they kept it as ghosts, but no one could remember Danny's appearance.

If that wasn't enough, he was the only one in his family- no the entire Ghost Zone - without an obsession. Every ghost had one. From Box Ghost and his boxes to Desiree and her whole Genie thing. No matter what he thought of, he couldn't remember his old life and what drove him then.

His family was great when it came to that. They couldn't quite remember anything of his life either, but they had snippets; a park visit here, a relative there, a favorite toy, etc. He cherished those memories they had managed to congregate together. Even though it was hardly a life (or afterlife) it was alright.

He counted his blessings, though. He had apparently died wearing a HAZMAT suit like his parents, though his was black with white details and white gloves. At least in his old life, he was safety conscience…he hoped.

He lay back down on the bed and closed his eyes. Ghosts hardly need to sleep, but it was an option. It wasn't really sleeping or dreaming, it was mostly like lucid daydreaming.

He dreamed a thousand scenarios, all about one thing;

His life.

He dreamed himself blonde, redhead, brunette, even black-haired. Sometimes blue eyes, other times brown, red or even gold. He had no basis, so he just went over anything that seemed right or seemed cool.

He tried every scenario for a teenager his age; geek, jock, playboy, bad boy, average Joe background character, even runaway. None seemed really right, but it was fun to imagine what a day in "life" for "Danny F-nt-nWo" would have been like.

He even extended it sometimes. He'd go off to college, meet a girl (once, he tried meeting a guy, but it didn't work out), having a family, even dying again. He never liked the last one, but he felt like it was more "complete" that way.

Right now, he had just graduated high school somewhere and accepted a position at a random college. He was shaking the hand of some principal in a suit-

"DANNY! JAZZ! COME QUICK!"

His father's bellowing interrupted his favorite part of the dream, but the urgency in the voice made him sit up. He made his way down to the lab basement with his sister in tow.

His parents were anxiously standing in front of a small control panel. They were beaming widely and practically hopping with anticipation. The last time he saw them this excited, they managed to get a computer to connect to the Human World's internet.

That was actually something worth the excitement. His parents loved chat rooms with real humans and getting in touch with modern development. Jazz loved to Google anything her books couldn't tell her.

Danny mostly liked it for human video games like Doomed.

Currently, these grins were almost identical to that time, if not even more excited.

"So, uh, what's up dad?" Danny ventured.

"We wanted you two here for our greatest accomplishment!" His father boomed excitedly.

"Wait. You mean-"

"That's right, sweetie. We finished the Portal!" Maddie replied. "Our calculations indicate that everything should be alright. Your father and I were just about to rev it up and thought you two should be here too."

Danny and Jazz looked at each other, smiling. They were happy for their parents. All of their work was paying off and they were there to see the results.

Their parents hurried around to the various terminals scattered around the lab; checking screens, reading printouts, and adjusting dials.

"Quantum flux is within parameters."

"The EM field is holding."

"Lower the Beta emission generator, we're getting too much alpha interference."

'_Something's wrong with the containment field.'_

Danny jumped. Neither of his parents said that, but it was clearly in his mother's voice….

Her worried voice.

"I've got a green light on electrical contacts A, B, and D. Still waiting on C."

"C's going to be a while, we rerouted it to E."

'_The EM field is way out of whack_.'

Danny shook his head again.

"Alright! We're a go! Press the button, Mads!"

His mother pressed a button on the main control panel. The lab lit up as terminals showed colorful line graphs and fluctuating bar graphs. Printers spewed out readouts. A few wires sparked here and there as the Portal started to hum with electricity.

_The contact sparked and a klaxon alarm sounded._

'_Jack! Turn up the flux! We're getting too much gamma!'_

'_The system won't respond!'_

The portal got brighter as more electricity flowed into it.

'_There's too much strain on the field!'_

The contacts began to glow green and blue as ecto energy and normal electricity began filling the capacitors.

His parents walked around checking every terminal and grinning as the readouts came up positive.

_Sparks flew as various pipes and wires exploded. Danny could practically feel the energy pulsating through the lab. Arcs of electricity flew around trying to find the source of least resistance._

The contacts inside the portal spun in a green/blue swirl of light.

A few readouts started spewing out from the printer and Jack rushed over to eagerly read them over. He nodded to his wife, who flipped a few more switches.

"It's working, Mads!"

Jazz was looking around, amazed at the scene unfolding.

Danny wasn't quite sure which one was which anymore.

_He collapsed to the ground._

"_DANNY!"_

"_JACK! THE CAPACITOR'S OVERLOADING! IT CAN'T HANDL-"_

_Sparks_

flew across the table and

_beakers exploded from the arcs_

as the contacts whirred to life. The machinery inside

_made a grinding noise as more electricity_

coursed through the wires to the power nodes. The Portal glowed bright

_Red_

And electricity arced inside

_The wavy energy seemed to implode into the center before-_

The energy seemed to swirl in the center before-

…

It fizzled…

…

…

The weird déjà vu moment stopped at that point. They were vastly different from each other, but it had the same weird feel to it. Either way, it seemed like the fizzle did the trick.

Danny doubted he'd seen his parents more stunned. Maddie still had the grin, but it was slowly slipping. Jack maintained his smile, eagerly anticipating the next moment…then almost pleading for the next moment…

Everyone stood awkwardly as the contacts slowed down and died. The readouts stopped and the graphs leveled out. The electricity whirred down to a lower pitch until it was a dull hum.

Jack broke the silence. "Sorry kids…I guess something happened…"

He looked down for a second before shooting right back up.

"Don't worry, kids! This is just a setback! I mean, did you see that?! It was incredible! We are so close, I can taste it like your mother's fudge!" He boomed with renewed vigor.

Maddie seemed to brighten up at her husband's enthusiasm. "You're father's right! Everything went according to plan. I bet we just missed a contact or a switch went faulty."

They eagerly chatted with each other about where to start.

Jazz's eyes suddenly lit up at an opportunity. "Mom, Dad, I bet all you need is a quick break and it'll come to you! Psychology supports the theory of "sleeping on it", so why don't you guys go out somewhere?"

The parents looked thoughtful before nodding. "We could always swing by Technus and tell him the news."

"I heard Pandora has a new Greek restaurant in her realm."

"After that, maybe we can go to that one hill with the perpetual sunset."

The two began whispering future plans to each other, Maddie giggling occasionally. Jazz looked pleased at her psychological suggestion. Danny gagged a bit.

The two scientist ghosts made their way upstairs and said goodbye to their kids as they flew off towards Technus's Lair first.

"OK, Danny. Since I'm in charge, I think it might be fair for you to take charge." Jazz looked over to her brother.

"Say what?"

"I wanted to stop by Spectra's to pick up another book. I know what you think of her, but she's got the best psychological knowledge of anyone short of Clockwork." She explained at Danny's grimace. Danny had a nasty encounter with the misery-leech a decade or so ago and never really let it go. "I'll probably head over to Ghost Writer's library for a while too. Besides, I think you can handle it." She smiled at him reassuringly and he returned it.

He waved her off as she flew into the green void of the Ghost Zone.

So, Danny stood there…

…home alone…

"YES!"

The excited ghost teen flew inside at breakneck speeds and picked up the headphones to the computer. Within seconds, he was logged back on to Doomed and playing with his two cohorts; Fryer-Tuck and Chaos.

_GhostBoy: Good morrow, minions!_

_Fryer-Tuck: GB, what's hangin?_

_Chaos: 'Sup?_

_GhostBoy: My folks and sis are out today. I got the computer all to myself._

_Fryer-Tuck: Way cool, man! You should definitely throw a party!_

_Chaos: Yeah, man. Do you live near Amity?_

_GhostBoy: Never heard of it._

_Chaos: It's this place in Illinois. You should totally come visit sometime!_

_Fryer-Tuck: Yeah, dude! You'd love it! The Nasty Burger is awesome!_

_Ghost Boy: The what?_

_Chaos: A grease-infested eatery dedicated to murdering innocent cows._

_Fryer-Tuck: Aw, Come on, Sam! It's delicious, man!_

_Ghost Boy: Thanks! We don't really have too much out here to do._

_Fryer-Tuck: Cool, man. So, are you planning on coming up?_

_Ghost Boy: No, I live pretty far away. :(_

_Chaos: Where?_

_Ghost Boy: …Canada?..._

_Chaos: That was a question, not an answer. :P_

_Ghost Boy: Look, I'd love to come up there, but I can't. OK?_

_Fryer-Tuck: Alright, dude. I understand, travel's pretty hard these days._

_Chaos: Ork on your left!_

And so, the mighty trio of Chaos, Fryer-Tuck, and Ghost Boy fought valiantly against the pixilated horrors for many moons… or at least until Fryer-Tuck's mom called him down for dinner. Danny logged off for the night and walked around the building.

He never actually appreciated it before. The rooms were pretty much intact, but the walls had scorch marks and some furniture looked like it should be rubble. The only reason the place was still livable was because the broken furniture defied gravity and just held its place as an ectoplasmic replica.

None of his family remembered why the place was how it was-

_Blue and Green electricity arced through the metal pipes of the lab_.

-but it was probably for the best.

Danny sighed before heading back downstairs, he just realized he never turned off the computer. He walked over to the PC and hit the power button before turning to go back upstairs.

He stopped for a moment.

He looked back over his shoulder.

His parents were adamant that their children couldn't be anywhere near the lab without them in it. He really was interested in the place. It was like a mad scientist lab with more…physics.

He decided to risk it. He walked around the lab, looking at the bubbling green and simmering reds in the beakers and watching an oscilloscope produce a jerky-looking sine graph.

Finally, he saw the Portal. The thing was impressive in itself, but the contact nodes inside were awesome! He let his hand drift on the wall of the portal chamber as he moved further in. It really was-

*click*

He looked down at his hand, currently pressing an odd little button. A familiar whirring sound surrounded him as the contacts began to light up again.

"Oh sh-"

Immediately, an enormous amount of electricity arced between the nodes. His entire field of vision became a white flash. He barely heard himself screaming.

Gigavolts of ecto-energy and electricity fused together at the center- conveniently where his body was. He felt as though he were being torn apart, rebuilt, then decomposed all over again. It was indescribable how much pain and confusion was going through his head.

He barely managed to stumble back as the portal activated. He couldn't resist the pull of the Portal's green spiral and fell right into it.

To him, it seemed instantaneous. There was no catastrophic squeezing or disintegrating feeling like in SciFi shows. One moment he was in his parents' lab, the next somewhere else.

He stumbled blindly in the dark. His dazed mind barely taking in his surroundings. He barely registered the footsteps as a figure walked towards him.

He blacked out.

* * *

><p>Sam Manson was never scared.<p>

That much was common knowledge in Amity Park.

She was the Goth Freak that somehow became friends with the tech nerd Tucker Foley. She was the kind of girl who would glare down bullies in third grade and win.

So, walking in a cemetery shortcut to get home should be a piece of cake. Right?

Wrong.

Normally, she'd feel right at home in the creepy graveyard, but today was different. There was something in the air that night. Something different…

Her train of thought was interrupted by a nearby bush crunching. Her adrenaline skyrocketed as she whirled around to see…

A boy.

He looked completely drunk as he made his way out of the treeline. She was immediately apprehensive about her own safety with some drunk guy, but noticed something different.

She'd seen guys her age drunk. They were always sloshy and laughing, but this one was different. He looked like he was dizzy, yeah, but in the wrong way. He didn't notice her.

She decided to risk it.

"Hey, are you OK?"

He fainted.

She ran up to the black-haired kid in the weird HAZMAT suit currently unconscious in front of her.

She immediately checked his neck.

She was relieved when she found a pulse.


	2. Chapter 2

I was so amazed at getting responses so soon for my first two fanfics. Thank you so much for everyone reading. I hope you really enjoy this work as much as I do.

Happy New Years (Posted Dec 26 or 27, 2014)

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

><p><span>Chapter 2<span>

Danny opened his eyes, blinking blearily in the light. He slowly adjusted to the relatively dim room and started taking in his surroundings. From what he could tell, he was in either a live-in funeral parlor, a witch's home, or a glorified tomb.

Black and purple seemed to be the dominant color palate. The walls were black and dark grey with Victorian floral designs. The bookshelves held a number of ominous tomes and some supernatural fiction along with a few voodoo dolls and what looked like a sheep's skull. By the shelves was a comfy, winged reading chair. There was a bed in the corner. It had an old-fashioned four-post curtain design. Needless to say, the curtains were purple and the sheets were black.

He started to edge more towards the witch theory.

He saw a purple-curtained window and peeked outside. He was surprised at the ambiance. He had expected some desolate moor, an eerie Count-Dracula-esque ravine with a single road up, maybe even a swamp or something. He would never have guessed he'd be in an upscale mansion district; much less, one with a rose-garden-white-pillar-everything's-awesome atmosphere to it.

He looked out at the street in front of him. Every home was a pristine, white, Columbian-esque mansion with perfectly manicured lawns and flower gardens trimmed to an over-glorified state. A large pond was nearby with picturesque reeds, ducks, and a bench. The water glittered under the moonlight-

Wait. _Moonlight_.

He looked up and gasped. It wasn't the familiar green swirls and endless doors of the Ghost Zone. It was a complete night sky with a beautiful, white, full moon and honest-to-God stars!

He was in the human world! His parents' portal worked!

His moment of excitement quickly died down.

His parents invention worked…

…

…

"How am I going to get back?" He mumbled to himself. As far as he could tell, there wasn't a portal on this side of the world and for all he knew, the portal they built on that side was a one-way trip.

He started pacing the grim room nervously. Where was he? Where did he arrive? Would a portal still be there? Is it possible for him to get back? Who brought him here?

Desperate for answers, he decided that he needed to get out of here first. He crouched down to fly and phase out through the wall. He jumped-

And smacked headfirst into it.

He rolled on the floor grasping his head in pain-

Wait. _Pain_.

He barely started to process this when he heard footsteps approach. He looked up at the door in time for it to slam open and a teenage girl stepped in. She was a mirror of her room style; all black, short skirt, combat boots, dark makeup. Danny remembered Jazz making a theory on people like this. "Goths".

"Are you okay?" She asked him. He looked stunned for a moment, not expecting concern or care in her voice. In all honesty, he'd expected something more of an angst-ridden response. He nodded his head.

"What was that crash?" She continued. She looked up at her wall, now sporting a small crack where Danny slammed into it. "Did you seriously break my wall?"

Danny shrunk a bit at her anger, but mumbled apologetically. She eased up a bit and went over to grab his arm. He flinched at the contact, but allowed her to direct him over to the comfy reading chair.

He sat down in it and waited while she pulled up another chair next to him. She sat down and looked at Danny over before speaking up.

"Hey."

"…hey…"

They stared at each other, waiting for the next move. This conversation wasn't going far.

"…my name's Sam. It's short for Samantha, but never call me that." She smiled a bit. It was sincere.

"…Danny…" He replied. "Danny Phan-ton" He mumbled at the last bit, doubting "Phantom" was a normal last name.

"Danny Fenton?" She asked, piecing together the syllables she could.

Danny nodded immediately. Not just for the quick escape, but because Danny Fenton sounded…right…

"Okay. Are you from around here? I've never seen you before."

He shook his head.

"Oh… Okay." She waited a bit, explaining a better explanation, but sighed when he stayed quiet.

"Alright, I'll skip to it then. What were you doing in the cemetery tonight and why did you pass out? You seem fine, so I assumed there were no drugs involved and you don't smell like alcohol."

He perked up a bit at that. "I seem fine?" He suddenly doubted this girl's medical capabilities. 'Fine' isn't what he'd expect humans to call someone dead.

"Yeah, I mean you feel really cold, but your heart rate seemed pretty okay even though it was a bit slow-"

"Wait. WHAT?!" He jumped up and looked around the room. He spotted a black vanity against the wall and rushed over to the mirror.

He almost passed out again.

His white hair was raven black.

His green eyes were now an icy blue.

He slowly put his trembling hand up to his chest.

_Ba-Bump_.

…

He backed away in complete shock. He managed to make it back to the chair before a complete mind-fog took over.

* * *

><p>Sam Manson, meanwhile, was extremely worried for this kid's health. First, he was passing out in random graveyards. Now, he was pretty much shut down after looking at his reflection.<p>

She noticed his lips moving slightly and she leaned in to hear him whispering a mantra. "I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive."

Now she was seriously freaking out. What was wrong with this kid? Maybe she should've just taken him to the hospital. She jumped as she heard a knock at the door.

Panicking, she took the still mind-numb boy and stuffed him in her closet. She brushed herself off to make herself seem more normal before going over to the door.

Her fears were instantly relieved as she saw the familiar, wrinkled face of Ida Manson, her grandmother.

"Grandma! Oh thank God. I thought it was my parents for a second."

"Don't worry, dearie. Those two are still downstairs. You know how absorbed your mother gets when she finds a new recipe. Your father is on a conference call, so I think he'll be out for a few hours. I heard a crash, though. Is everything alright?"

"Not really, grandma. I have a serious problem." The old woman's brows furrowed as she drove her moped further into the room. Her granddaughter shut the door, walked to her closet, and opened the door. To her surprise, a young boy fell out onto the floor. "Don't worry, Grandma. He's fine- I think. He's just in some kinda shock."

Sam hoisted the young lad onto her reading chair again and Ida saw that he was, in fact, awake but had a thousand-mile-stare that could rival some of her senior friends' Vietnam PTSD. She motored her way over to the two chairs and calmly said "Alright, Sam. Please tell me everything."

Sam explained to her grandmother how she found this kid, what happened at the cemetery, and how she brought him home. She finished off her story with his odd episode after seeing his reflection. Ida remained silent throughout the explanation.

"So, this Danny… Fenton, yes?" Sam nodded. Ida's eyes narrowed a bit. "So, you found young Danny and brought him here to make sure he'd be alright?" Another nod.

"It seemed like the only thing I could think of." Ida nodded understandingly.

"Well, dearie, aside from some issue with his reflection, I'd think he's fine. I lived through the 60's. I've seen what drugs do to people and this hardly seems like an after-affect of anything I've ever heard of." She stopped when she saw the young boy blink. His blue eyes started going back into focus and he slowly became aware of his surroundings.

"…wha….where….huh?" He still seemed a bit out-of-it. Ida smiled warmly at the confused boy.

"Hello, Daniel. My name is Ida Manson. I'm Samantha's grandmother." Sam didn't mind her grandmother using her full name. "Can you tell us anything about yourself? Are you alright?"

He nodded his head and his gaze sharpened with a plan. "A-actually, I've got to go. I'm sure my parents are worried about me. Could you tell me how to get back to the cemetery? I think I can find my way back from there."

"Are you sure you don't want me to just drive you, dearie? I may be old, but I can still work a car."

"No, I think I've caused enough worry for now. Thank you so much for everything." Ida relayed directions to get to the cemetery and he jotted them down on a notecard from Sam just in case. He got up and Sam escorted him to the front door, avoiding her parents along the way.

She watched him go down her street following the card's directions.

She walked up to her bedroom to find her grandmother looking out her window. The old woman's gaze was sharp and concerned as she followed the young man's progress.

"Daniel Fenton…" She murmured. "What a coincidence."

* * *

><p>Danny kept going down the streets. Everything was quiet and no one was out, so he wasn't too worried about being mugged. It wasn't like he had anything on him anyways.<p>

He walked past the landmarks listed on the notecard as he went on his way back. His only hope was that, somehow, there was a return portal at the graveyard, otherwise, he'd be here for a while.

The entire time, he kept processing things in his head. _He was alive!_ His only thought was the Portal accident, but he had no idea how that was even possible. Maybe his parents would help him out…

_No!_ a small voice in his head shouted. He shuddered at the thought. His parents were obsessed with anything human, ghost, or otherwise. He worried that their obsession would overrule any parental emotions they have for Danny _Phantom_.

He suddenly felt very alone…

And scared.

It was times like these that he wished he could have a cinnamon bun or something- wait, where'd that come from?

He stopped and processed that stray thought. Cinnamon buns? His mouth watered slightly (it felt weird after being dead for so long) at the prospect of… what? He couldn't quite remember tastes and food in the Ghost Zone was a bit different from food in the mortal plane.

Still, he decided to entertain the thought.

'It was times like these that I wish I could have a cinnamon bun or something from that bakery on Krueger Street.' He was a bit confused. Krueger street? What was-

He suddenly looked around for the first time in a while, suddenly very aware of his surroundings.

He looked over to his left and saw a sign on a store. _Amity Park Bakery; serving fine confections and pastries since 1956_. He looked up at a nearby street sign.

Krueger Street.

His newfound heartbeat was racing slightly as his mind started wrapping around this new information. He looked around and saw the old buildings around him.

_Aw, they got rid of the arcade? Come on! Who needs some "tofu" place anyhow?_

He jumped at that small blip in his mind. He saw a vegan Chinese restaurant and had a fuzzy picture of that same building, but with bright and colorful posters boasting PacMan, racing games, and Pinball machines.

He slowly looked around. No other buildings jumped out, but street names seemed to be calling to him. He decided to deviate a bit from the card, but note where he was going to backtrack.

He followed the street signs. Krueger to Oak. Oak to Weston. Weston to Heathcliffe. Heathcliffe to-

At the corner of two nearby streets, he felt his heart stop again. His mind blanked as he walked numbly to the corner of Vincent Price Avenue and Specter Street.

Sitting there was a small building. It looked just like all of the buildings around it, save for a few key differences. The once-red/brown bricks had black scorch marks around them. The lawn was dead and overgrown with weeds. Chunks of wall were exposed, revealing mostly destroyed rooms inside.

But what made him stop was an odd UFO-like metal saucer on the top with a familiar neon sign running down it.

"F-nt-nWo-"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Danny stared at the familiar building for a while longer. It looked just like it did in the Ghost Zone. He glanced down the streets to make sure no one was around before he made his way to the derelict building.

The door opened on one hinge and he looked around the parlor. Bits of broken furniture were strewn around the entire house and char marks went up every wall. Some marks zigged and zagged in intricate patterns, following unseen pipes in the walls.

The charred floorboards creaked under his weight, but didn't give. He made his way to the moonlit kitchen. He eyed the door in the corner. That led to his parent's basement laboratory in the Ghost Zone…

He opened the door and flipped the light. Nothing. The light had long-since been burnt out. He opened the door futher to let in whatever moonlight in the kitchen and saw that the stairs down had decayed away.

Given his current state of "living", he didn't want to risk anything at the moment. He shut the door, promising to come back one day. His curiosity about the uncanny place remained. He walked carefully to the upstairs level, thankful that the staircase there was sturdier.

He walked past his sister's room and just like in the Ghost Zone, it was filled with books, most still intact from surviving the blast…and a small teddy bear. He paused at that one. Jazz didn't have a teddy bear in her ghost room. He picked it up and inspected it. It had long, white hair in frizzy angles, some geek glasses, and what looked like a white moustache under his button nose.

He tucked it under his arm as he kept going.

Finally, he made it to the end of the hall. He opened the last door and looked inside.

No doubt about it; this was his room.

Everything was the same, right down to the posters on his wall, albeit a few were scorched. He briefly wondered why looters hadn't taken anything but was too busy looking at this room.

As a ghost, he didn't really need a room. It was mostly just a casual habit. True, he'd "sleep" there but he didn't need it. Everything in there was an ectoplasmic decoration to echo this place. In here, everything had more substance and he couldn't help but look at everything with a new light.

He picked through some drawers and a cabinet, finding nothing. His desk had some brittle papers of unfinished math homework and the start of a book report. His bed was dusty and the springs were stiff from years of neglect, but surprisingly still usable.

He opened his closet and was surprised to find normal clothes. He expected that much, but after existing with the same spandex suit for so long he'd long forgotten about any sort of alternative outfit he used to wear.

His shirts were mostly the same white shirt with a nondescript red circle logo. He fingered the fabric, trying to remember anything about it. He pushed a few shirts back and found an unused black suit and tie towards the back. He looked down and saw a few pairs of the same, red and white converse sneakers.

He moved over to the dresser and found a few pairs of somewhat baggy jeans neatly folded in one of the drawers. Out of curiosity more than anything he stripped out of his spandex suit.

For a moment, he actually just stood there. Yeah, it's weird, but when you think about it, he'd been wearing the same clothing for years without ever taking it off. He tossed the spandex material to the side and took a white shirt off the rack along with the converse and jeans. Within minutes, he had a clean ensemble of clothes on him for the first time in decades.

He walked over to a dusty, cracked mirror and looked at himself again.

This time he braced himself. Back then, it was a complete shock and he hadn't really appreciated it. Now, it seemed right. The icicle blue eyes under messy, raven bangs seemed to fit perfectly. The clothes fit him exactly and he couldn't help but feel like this was…right.

His attention was drawn to the corner of the room by an unusual glow of green in the mirror. He spun around and saw his spandex suit- or rather what was left of it. He could still see the black and white material but it was quickly dissolving into green goo around the edges. Within seconds, the entire suit decomposed and the glowing goo was vaporizing.

Danny turned away when the last of the vapor disappeared. He knew that the suit was just some ectoplasmic representation of the clothes he died in, but it was still eerie to see the thing dissolve away.

He saw an old, purple backpack under the desk and picked it up. It was surprisingly still good. He took out some decaying textbooks and a few loose pieces of paper before putting in the bear for his sister along with some of the clothes there, including some light blue pajamas from some drawers.

He plopped the backpack on the bed and looked himself over in the mirror again. Everything about it seemed too familiar; …too…"right". He couldn't explain it, but it felt "right" to look like that. The same way "Fenton" sounded "right".

He stared at the figure in the mirror.

"Danny Fenton." He murmured. He couldn't shake himself out of it. It fit.

He headed outside with the backpack and clothes breathing in the crisp, night air as he backtracked to his previous path to the cemetery.

He passed more shops and service stores before he came to some high, black iron gates with headstones behind it. He opened the creaky gate and explored the field of markers. His spirits dropped as he failed to find a glowing, green portal in the area.

Struggling, he tried to recall his first appearance. His mind had been so fuzzy, but something had to be…

Branches.

His eyes snapped open at the memory. He distinctly remembered walking through brambles. He looked around and spotted a treeline in the distance. He picked up the pace and headed over.

He maneuvered through the brambles and tree trunks before he found his prize. In the wooded area was a clearing leading to more graves and hidden behind a statue was a swirling, green portal. Danny could've jumped for joy, but chose, instead, to jump through the portal.

His worry and apprehension turned to relief as he entered the familiar, buzzing activity of his parent's lab in the Ghost Zone.

"Mom! Dad! Jazz!" he called. After a few seconds, no one answered. He assumed they were still out.

He walked over to the computer and booted it up. He went to Google and typed in whatever he could think about with the address there, but no results came up. He tried again with a bit of general history of the area, but it seemed like local news wasn't terribly important there.

He sighed and pushed himself deeper into the chair. He decided to put on some headphones and logged in to Doomed.

_GhostBoy: Hello?_

_Fryer-Tuck: Dude! Wassup? You still game?_

_GhostBoy: No, I'm pretty drained tonight…a lot of stuff's…happened._

_Chaos: I'm in the same boat._

_GhostBoy: Really?_

_Chaos: You wouldn't believe me if I told you._

_GhostBoy: Okay. Anyway, I just wanted to talk a bit and the computer was right there. So…_

_Fryer-Tuck: It's cool, man. So have you thought about coming to visit?_

_GhostBoy: Probably not. I mean I-_

Danny paused for a second. Now he had a means to get to this "Amity", so it was more reachable than before and-

Wait.

_GhostBoy: Wait, did you say Amity like Amity Park?_

_Fryer-Tuck: Yeah._

_GhostBoy: Oh my God! I was…travelling and I ended up in this small town. I remember there was a bakery that said Amity Park Bakery._

_Fryer-Tuck: The one on Krueger?_

_GhostBoy: Yeah!_

_Fryer-Tuck: They make the best cinnamon buns._

_GhostBoy: …_

_Chaos: If you're in the area we should totally hang out!_

_Fryer-Tuck: Dude that'd be so awesome!_

_GhostBoy: I guess so._

_Fryer-Tuck: Cool! Why don't you meet us up tomorrow at the Nasty Burger. How about 6?_

_GhostBoy: Sure, sounds good._

_Chaos: See you then!_

_Fryer-Tuck: Bye, dude._

_Player [Chaos] has logged off._

_Player [Fryer-Tuck] has logged off._

_Player [Fryer-Tuck] has logged on._

_Fryer-Tuck: Dude. What's your name? It'll be kinda weird if we don't know who to look for._

_GhostBoy: Oh, yeah. My name's Danny._

_Fryer-Tuck: Cool. My name's Tucker. I'll be the totally awesome guy in the red beret. See you then._

_Player [Fryer-Tuck] has logged off._

Danny logged off of his account and reflected on everything. Tonight had been…eventful to say the least.

He suddenly heard the front door opening and his parents walking down the steps; both talking.

Danny was suddenly struck with absolute fear. He wasn't himself! He wasn't Danny Phantom anymore! He closed his eyes and wished he'd just disappear, or at least turn back to a ghost.

He felt something cold wash over him starting from his waist. He felt it tingle as it went up and down his body, but kept his eyes shut.

"I'm tellin' ya, Mads. I've got just the thing for the portal."

"I'm sure, Jack. We're so close I can- Oh." She stopped in her tracks and Danny could feel the gaze on him. "Danny, what are you doing?"

For a moment, he just stood there, shocked. He opened his eyes and saw his parents looking at him with mild concern. He looked down at himself.

His old black and white jumpsuit was back.

He didn't have a reflective surface to look at himself, but he'd bet his eyes and hair were back too.

"I, uh, I-I…Well…ya see…" He stumbled helplessly over his words. "I was, uh, playing on the computer here. Doomed, ya know? And I, uh, I-I…"

"Well, Danny, I assumed you were on the computer, it's still on behind you. What I wanted to know was why you were just standing there with your eyes shut."

Danny grasped for any explanation. "Oh, it's, uh, this, uh, _zen_ thing! Yeah! Stand still and keep your eyes closed…to, uh, _feel the universe_ and stuff."

His mother furrowed her brows in concern. "Danny, I'm pretty sure 'zen' doesn't apply if you don't have a body."

"Oh, yeah! Would ya look at that! Oh, darn. Tricked by the internet again." He laughed nervously and trotted off to his bedroom.

* * *

><p>Maddie Phantom looked after the son as he floated up the stairs. She knew he was still in that awkward teenage phase, but this was weird even for that.<p>

Jack shrugged it off. Not because he didn't care, but because he knew his son was strong enough to pull through whatever was causing this weird behavior.

The stout scientist walked over to his graphs and charts and began reading them off. He suddenly stopped at one.

"Maddie!" he exclaimed. She rushed over and looked at the readouts. In seconds the duo were analyzing each readout until they looked at each other.

Wordlessly, they opened the safety doors to the Portal and were welcomed by the green swirl of the portal's glow.

"Oh, Jack." She breathed. "It works."

They stood together in front of the eerie green glow, basking in their accomplishment for a while longer. Neither said anything, but both of them knew how happy each other were.

* * *

><p>Danny was oblivious to his parents' current odd romance downstairs and went to his room. He brought along the purple backpack, clothes, and bear. Jazz would likely be at the library for days; he'd show her when she returned.<p>

Looking around his room, a lot of things were the same, but different. The scorch marks were still there along with the old bed, but the dust, the homework and the details were all missing. He opened his closet, but it was empty. The jeans drawer was the same. Though, his cracked mirror was still in place.

He looked himself over in it. He confirmed his suspicions, his hair was its usual white and his eyes were green again.

He remembered the odd feeling down in the lab and concentrated on it again.

He kept his eyes open and saw a bright, white ring form around his waist. It vanished when he lost concentration in surprise, but he willed it back into existence. It slowly crawled up and down his body until he looked himself in the mirror.

His hair was black, his eyes were blue. He checked his neck. _Ba-Bump_. He lowered it and stared in shock. The dusty clothes he had taken had even materialized, too.

He spent about five minutes or so swapping between his ghost self and human self. Eventually, he got exhausted from the ability and settled back down to his bed in his ghost form.

The bed was still soft and springy. He thought about it. His parents don't come in and there was no school to go to in the ghost zone. Essentially, he could sleep in this room forever if he wanted.

A thought came to him.

He let the white rings wash over him again. He changed into the light blue pajamas he took. He laid down on the bed and for the first time in years, he did what he thought he'd never experience again.

That night, he dreamed.

* * *

><p>AN: Admittedly, not my favorite chapter. It's pretty necessary, though it's slow. My favorite so far is actually the next one. I have a couple chapters ready, but I wanted to space them out instead of throwing them at you until I ran out of chapters. It gives me time to write more.<p>

I just wanted to say that something's come up in my life. I will still update, but updates will be somewhat far between. Don't worry, I'll put the next one up soon.

I hope you enjoyed this installment.

Until next time.

-Crow


	4. Chapter 4

This is my favorite chapter I've written thus far.

I forgot in the last few chapters, but just in case it happens again-

**Disclaimer: I do not own any shape or form of Danny Phantom and this applies to any chapters before or after this disclaimer in the event that I forget disclaimers again.**

…seriously? Do we have to do that with every chapter?...*sigh*

I hope you enjoy this nice, long installment of Danny Phantom Reversal.

-Crow

* * *

><p><span>Chapter 4<span>

Danny woke up uneventfully the next day. No parents barging in or anything. He woke up refreshed and changed back to his usual ghostly self.

He walked downstairs to the basement to find his parents eagerly zipping around the basement lab yammering in the ever-tricky language of "science".

"Hey, guys. What's up?" He called out. They stopped immediately and beamed at him.

"Son! It's the most amazing thing! The portal suddenly started working yesterday!" Jack boomed.

"You're father and I have been analyzing the data and have even sent a small probe through. It's a stable wormhole through to the mortal plane!" His mother said excitedly.

"Cool! So, uh, does that mean people can go through it or…"

"What? Of course not, son. We still need to run more tests. I mean, eventually we will go to the human realm for some close-up examination, but reconnaissance and patience are necessary for any good scientist exploring the unknown."

"Oh."

"Exactly! Is there something you wanted to talk about?"

"Oh, well, I- uh. I… was wondering who you were going to tell."

"Well, we were actually planning on keeping it a secret for now. I know every ghost here is itching to go back to the human world to live out their obsessions, so I don't want to tell too many people. We may tell Technus though…" His mother pondered over the option.

Jack decided to interrupt her train of thought. "Hey, Mads, how about to celebrate we go out for a change! We can tell a few people later. I heard Listz has a new sonata he's performing tonight. I remember how much you like his music."

Maddie beamed at the offer, but frowned in thought. "But Jack, don't you think-"

"Maddie, we've been at this portal for over 25 years. Don't you think it's time we take some time for ourselves just for a bit? I doubt the portal's going anywhere anytime soon."

She smiled and nodded. "Danny, I guess we'll be off for a while. So have fun, I suppose."

Danny smiled at the bit of freedom offered, but thought quickly. "Hey, mom, I was actually going to do some things for a while. I promise I'll be fine, but I was kinda planning going off to the Far Frozen for a while."

"Don't worry Danny, I trust Frostbite. How long are you planning for?"

"A week, maybe?"

"A week? Isn't that a little-… well alright, sweetie. Just be back soon and don't get into trouble, okay?"

He promised and watched as the two flew off to whatever they had planned for the time being. He drifted downstairs and turned on the computer. The small clock attached to Central Time stated it was 5:14 PM.

He smiled and opened the portal. He drifted upstairs and grabbed the backpack with his clothes and the pajamas. He left Jazz's bear under his bed for later.

He drifted back down to the basement and walked through the swirling green mist to the other end. The portal was still behind the same statue in the same section of the graveyard. He smiled, at least his way home was pretty much guaranteed.

He concentrated and felt the rings of light turn him human again. He looked down and saw the familiar t-shirt and jeans. Just because, he put his hand to his neck. _Ba-Bump_.

He smiled. This was freaky, but way too awesome!

He made his way out of the brambles and towards the gates of the graveyard. Even before he got through the gate, he was amazed at what he saw. Last night had been desolate, but at 5:30 there was plenty of activity and plenty of people.

He actually gawked slightly at the sheer amount of activity, though. He remembered phones from when he was alive, but here people were talking into flat, black rectangles or looking at said rectangles with concentration. A few were even tapping their thumbs against the base of the rectangle.

_I definitely need to figure those out_. He thought to himself. He continued on, staring at people passing by or looking through some windows at restaurants. Cars zoomed by and people rushed here and there in efforts to go… somewhere. People talked, people _did_, people _lived_.

Everything here seemed so much more exciting. The Ghost Zone was… excuse the pun, _dead_. Here, everything seemed so much more…_ lively_.

He mentally facepalmed at the puns, but couldn't help it. No other adjective fit better for the places. Here there was promise and a future and people running around living _lives_. The Ghost Zone was basically like God's waiting room. Ghosts stuck around doing whatever to keep themselves occupied while waiting for their number or their turn to move on. And of course, like any waiting room, it was boring.

Eventually, he got over his future shock and saw kind-looking woman with her 4 or 5 year old daughter. "Excuse me, miss. I'm new here. Do you know where the 'Nasty Burger' is?"

The woman smiled warmly. "Of course, it's down this street and you turn right at the next intersection."

"Thanks." Danny headed off, but heard the young girl whisper to her mother.

"Mommy, why did you talk to the dead boy?"

He shuddered, but kept walking.

* * *

><p><em>So, this is the Nasty Burger<em>. He thought to himself. The place was a simple restaurant designed to resemble something from the fifties. Danny had no memories of it, so he assumed it was intentionally designed that way. No one back then would've called something "Nasty Burger".

He walked in and was greeted by the sounds of teenagers laughing and chatting and the overpowering smell of grease and salty foods.

He looked around at the tables and saw a small booth against a window. Facing away from him was someone with black hair, but on the opposite bench was a young African American kid in a red beret tapping away on something that looked a lot like those popular black rectangles.

He walked up to the boy and awkwardly grabbed his attention. "Uh, hey. Are you Tucker?"

He looked up and then his eyes widened a bit at a sudden thought. "So, you're GhostBoy?"

Danny smiled and nodded. "Yeah, but my real name's-"

He cut off as he looked at the figure across from Tucker. She had familiar purple eyes, black hair, and gothic clothes.

"You!" They shouted simultaneously.

Tucker was stunned for a moment before he broke the awkward silence.

"I take it you two know each other?" He asked calmly.

"Know him? He's that kid I was telling you about!" Sam angrily stated.

"Seriously? This is the guy?" Tucker looked at Danny.

Danny sighed. "Look…Sam?" she nodded. "Sam, I'm sorry for what happened last night. I'm grateful and all for you helping me out back there, but I'm alright. I'm just here to meet with some internet friends." Sam smirked.

"I know GhostBoy. Nice to meet you." She stuck out her hand. "I'm Chaos."

Danny's mouth dropped slightly. "Wait, _you're_ Chaos?"

She nodded triumphantly with her arms crossed.

"Well don't expect me to start worshipping you, then 'Oh Great Destroyer of Galahan's Castle'." They both laughed and the tension dissipated fast, though Sam still kept her eye on the mysterious kid. They introduced themselves properly and he sat down.

Tucker, being the typical loudmouth, started up the conversation. "So, dude, how'd you end up here? You said you were somewhere in Canada last time."

Danny rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, well, my parents kinda moved on a last minute basis. I just got here last night and I had no idea where we were going, let alone that I was heading for Amity Park."

Sam stared a bit wide-eyed. "Woah, are you, like, part of WPP?"

"What?" Danny asked, confused.

"Witness Protection Program."

Danny laughed a bit. "No, it's nothing like that. My parents' job makes them move around a lot. We don't stay anywhere too long so I've gotten used to moving without much notice." He saw their expressions drop and added. "_but_, this time I think I'm sticking around for a while." They smiled a bit.

"So, what do your parents do?" Sam asked.

"They're scientists. They do a lot of experiments and field research." Technically he wasn't lying that time; he just left out some of the more distinct details about them. Like a lack of heartbeat.

"Dude, we should totally come and visit some time!" Tucker said excitedly. Danny put his hand to his neck as he came up with a story.

"Oh, well you see, my parents are kinda reclusive and guarded with their work. They don't really like too many guests. Even then, the house is kinda dangerous if you don't know what to look for." Again, not a lie, just not the truth.

"Oh. That's cool, then. You should totally hang at our places, then." Tucker said.

"Sure, it sounds fun."

They kept going about what the town was like and soon a server came over and dropped off a tray of burgers and fries. There were two beef burgers and a tofu burger.

"Here, dude. I figured you're more of a meat guy." Tucker said, handing over one of the beef burgers.

"Wow, thanks man." Danny said accepting the offering.

Sam and Tucker started munching on their food and Danny watched them eat before copying their movements. His eyes widened after he took the first bite.

"Wow! 'Zish is sho good." He said through the bite. Tucker swallowed before answering.

"What, do they not have burgers out in Canada?"

Danny swallowed and shook his head. Most of the restaurants in the Ghost Zone were more culturally-based like Pandora's Greek restaurants or Kuchisake-Onna's Japanese places. So far, there wasn't a burger place that he could tell.

"This is way better than what we had out where I lived." Danny answered truthfully.

They kept talking about the town and what to do in it. They even told him about some cool places to hang out. Danny was somewhat happy when he found out that the arcade hadn't shut down, it just moved.

"Hey guys, I was wondering about this one place. I can't really find anything on it."

"Yeah? What place?" Tucker asked.

"This weird building on Specter and Vincent Price." Sam and Tucker shared a look.

"The burnt-out mad-science building?"

"Yeah."

Tucker grinned while Sam rolled her eyes. The techno-geek then started speaking in a comically overdramatic scary-story-style.

"They say the place is…_haunted_." He chuckled evilly.

Danny smirked. _Well the building is haunted, just not _that_ version._

Tucker continued the story in a more-normal-voice. "Years ago, there were these two scientists who made all kinds of crazy stuff in their basement. Then, one day the entire place just exploded. Both scientists died along with their son and daughter." Danny felt some chills at that point. It was obvious who the son was.

"What were their names?"

"No one remembers. It was, like, 30 years ago and from what we've heard they were never really too social, either."

"Okay, so why doesn't anyone tear the place down?" More out of curiosity than a desire to see his past demolished.

"That lab they had was a pretty messed up place. According to the city, they had conduit wires in their walls hooked up to huge generators and some pretty nasty stuff in their chemistry sets.

"No one knows how to safely get rid of the stuff without either blowing something up or getting electrocuted from capacitor discharge. They mostly just tell people to stay away."

"Huh, so it's just home to a bunch of homeless people and looters?" Danny asked.

"That's the other thing; no one lives there, _ever_. They say that a looter went in and just _died_. There wasn't even any reason for it. He just dropped dead when he went in and some people found him days later when he started to… smell." He grimaced at that. Danny bet it was just an urban legend. That or he really did get the wrong end of one of his parent's inventions.

"Since then, no one lives there. As far as anyone knows, anything in the place that survived the blast is still in there." Danny nodded. That much was true. "It's not like it really matters, though. It's pretty well known that they had nothing really valuable, unless you count all of the copper pipes in their home. But even then, everyone knows not to go bashing into the walls of the Specter House. You never know where one of those high-voltage cables are."

"Specter House?"

"Yeah, it fits. The house is on Specter Street and it's haunted. Specter House." Tucker explained simply. Danny nodded in understanding.

The conversation continued. Tucker was excitedly talking about things in the town while Sam was cautious about the new boy's body language. From what she could tell, he was more interested in the Specter House than the new café on Green Street.

* * *

><p>Danny said goodbye to his friends an hour or so later. He didn't get anywhere in regards to his old house, but he was still happy to have made some friends. In the end, he decided to do the one thing he (and probably Jazz) could think of.<p>

He went to the library.

* * *

><p>Hours.<p>

He spent _hours_ going through old microfilm newspapers on Amity Park. He started from that day and moved back. Nothing jumped out on the front pages and obituaries were a dead-end.

He went all the way back to 1990 and there was still no record of an explosion or accident on Specter Street. He would have kept going, but after hours of sifting through intelligence alone, he needed a break.

He shut off the machine and walked down the halls. _Weird, everything's dark. Where is everyone?_ He thought to himself. He eventually reached the front door and pushed against it-

*clunk*

He frowned. The doors were locked.

He looked up through the dimness at a wall clock still ticking away. 3:50 AM.

He cursed softly to himself. He was locked into the most boring place on earth. While this was Jazz's dream, this was probably Danny's nightmare.

He tried any door he could think of but they were all locked. Frustrated, he sat down at a nearby chair.

_This is so stupid! If I was a ghost I could just phase through that._ As soon as he thought about phasing, he remembered the feel that accompanied him. Strangely, he felt that same feeling now.

He looked at his arm and gasped when he saw it was slightly tinged blue and somewhat transparent. His surprise ended the effect and his hand regained color and solidity. He gulped and focused on the feeling again. This time, his entire arm had the effect.

To experiment, he set it down on the chair's arm and watched as it sank through. He pulled it out and let it regain solidity.

_Awesome!_ He thought. Having ghost powers in human form was definitely a bonus.

He walked to the front door and willed the feeling on himself. This time, he focused on his entire body. When he looked down, everything had the slight bluish color and semi-transparency. He confidently walked through the glass door.

He stopped for a moment when he heard something go *shhh* on the other side. He looked and there, slowly sliding down the glass, was a t-shirt and jeans pressed against the door.

Mortified, he felt his cheeks heat up as he glanced down.

Yep.

"OH, COME ON!"

* * *

><p>It took a few tries, but he eventually figured out how to phase through with everything intact.<p>

He spent the remainder of the morning walking around the town, watching early-risers on morning jogs or a few garbage men making their rounds. He definitely liked the evenings better.

At around 9:30, he was still wandering somewhat aimlessly as he passed by a squad car parked on the side of the street. He jumped when he heard the "whoop!" of the siren and stopped to look at the officer pulling up.

"Young man, do you know what day it is?" The officer asked sternly.

Danny shook his head. The officer's forehead creased; either the kid was clueless or a smart-alek. "It's Wednesday, kid. Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

Danny's eyes widened in realization and he stammered a bit. "I- I'm sorry, officer. I just moved here, so days are still a blur. I-I'm still finding my way around. I'm not even enrolled anywhere yet."

The officer looked the kid over and saw he was new to the town. So far, it checked out. Though…

"Alright kid, how about this? There's only one high school in town; Casper High. I'll drop you off and you can sign the forms to enroll. 'K? It's illegal for kids your age to not be in school."

Danny shrugged. He guessed a school would be a good place to get some answers.

The officer led him to the car and let him sit in the passenger's seat. Turns out, the guy was pretty okay. He asked a few questions about where Danny was from and Danny stuck to the story he told Sam and Tucker. Soon enough, they pulled up to an old red-brick building with "Casper High" on a sign nearby.

_Lots of students were milling around the lawn in front of the building. The jocks were flirting with the cheerleaders, and a few thick-glasses-wearing geeks were talking animatedly about the future of the "home computer"._

_ He looked back at the red-haired woman who drove him. "Have a nice first day, sweetie."_

He blinked and the scene shattered. The front yard was empty (it was in the middle of the school day, after all) and the exterior was slightly more worn.

The officer looked at him in concern. As far as he could tell, the kid just froze up for a second.

"Hey, kid. You alright?"

Danny nodded, still analyzing the… thing.

"Okay. Are you sure you don't need me to pick up your parents?" Danny turned to the officer and forced a smile.

"No, it's fine. They're pretty busy so I can fill out the forms myself." Danny assured the officer. He got out calmly, ignoring the uneasiness from the… whatever-that-was. The police man gave a brief nod before driving off.

Danny entered the school and saw a few stragglers walking around the halls, but everything was mostly empty.

He wandered around until he found the main office. He approached the counter and a somewhat bored secretary looked up from her magazine.

"Hi, I'm new. I was hoping to enroll here?" The secretary frowned a bit at the unorthodox situation. Usually it was the parents who came to fill out the forms. Still, they don't pay her to be concerned.

She pulled out the stack of papers and handed them to the boy along with a pen. He slowly filled them out, signing his name with a bit of awkwardness. He left a bunch of forms blank or replied that he had no insurance.

Under address, he listed the address of the wreckage on Specter Street. _Technically_ that was still his home.

He gave the forms back to the secretary, who frowned at a few of the blanks. "You know, sweetheart, you need insurance at some point."

Danny smiled pleasantly as he lied again. "Oh, well we had to change insurance companies before we moved. We'll get something soon, don't worry."

The secretary shrugged and directed him to a plain, white wall before taking out a small camera. She snapped a photo of him and ran it through a small machine. After a few seconds, a small, plastic ID card popped out the other end.

"This is your ID card, it'll have meals and allow you access to the school library. Here is your schedule, just start at the next hour's class. And here is a list of some books you need to check out from the library as soon as you can."

Danny thanked the secretary and headed off to the library. He'd luckily been wearing his backpack when he was caught, so the books he checked out fit well in it.

He took a look at the schedule and packed any extra books in the locker number on the syllabus before going to the next course on the schedule.

Danny knocked on the door and a voice said to come in. He opened the door and took a look at his class. Most of the students were looking at him, somewhat relieved for the interesting interruption. The teacher was a bald, mildly overweight teacher with a black goatee and a book in one hand.

"Can I help you?" The teacher asked.

"Uh, hi. I'm Danny Fenton. I just enrolled."

"Ah, please take a seat then, Mr. Fenton. My name is Mr. Lancer and for today we are talking about the works of Emily Dickens. Now class-" Mr. Lancer continued to lecture on.

Danny took a look at the seats and found an empty one by-

Tucker waved in the seat to the left. Sam grinned in the seat to the right. Danny smiled.

"Awesome."

* * *

><p>The school day went by easily. Danny had a lot of fun, actually. No, he wasn't a preppy, gung-ho scholar like his sister, but it was kinda cool to be a normal teenager again. After all, this was what he'd dreamed of for years.<p>

He walked down the street, thinking to himself. He'd been assigned homework that day and told a few things to catch up with. Luckily, it was still September, so he didn't have much.

He thought about what to do from then on. His parents would get suspicious if he kept going into the lab or encouraging them out of the lab. He could always sneak in and out invisibly, but he didn't want to risk them noticing.

Besides, he'd already warned them he'd be gone for a while, so he just needed a place to crash.

_What better place to live than home?_ He mused to himself as he approached the wreckage. The neighborhood was pretty alright. Thankfully, the derelict building didn't cause a ghetto to form around it, so there were still pleasant families around the building; they just didn't look at the eyesore.

At the moment, no one was around to see him. He walked into the building carefully and went upstairs to his human-self's room. It kept out the rain and the walls were still intact along with the window, though it had a crack through it. Overall, it was still inhabitable.

He plopped his backpack on the floorboards and looked at his desk. It seemed almost a shame to sweep away the old homework, so he did the work on his bed. It creaked a bit, but was still pretty nice.

By about 7:00, he'd finished his work and was staring at his ceiling. So far, he'd reached dead end after dead end with uncovering his past. He barely noticed the sun set until it was dark. He had looked around the house already, every lighbulb was shattered and every electrical conduit in the house was long-since fried.

He decided he needed the light, so he put a small amount of ecto-energy into his hands and caused a small orb or light to form. The orb floated around him, flickering in a cold, blue-white flame and casting a faded blue light on the room.

He grinned. It was a trick some Japanese ghosts had taught him. These orbs were just little balls of ectoplasm that looked like they were burning, but really couldn't light an alcohol-soaked piece of paper on fire. Completely safe in his room.

He stared at his little, glowing orb as it flickered and bobbed aimlessly around his bed.

He decided it was too late to do much, so he got up and snuffed out the "flame". He changed into the pajamas he had in his backpack and laid down in bed to sleep.

* * *

><p>Maria Burton was your average skeptic when it came to ghosts. She liked to humor ghost stories, but never put much thought or conviction into them. However, that night she became a firm believer that something was beyond the grave.<p>

And some things didn't leave.

It started the day before. She'd been walking with her daughter, Anna, when a polite young boy with messy hair and baggy clothes asked her for directions. After she gave them, her daughter gestured for her to come in to hear her whisper.

She grinned and complied, but her face fell when she heard what her daughter had to say.

"Mommy, why did you talk to the dead boy?"

For a moment, she was too confused to answer right away. "What do you mean, Anna? What dead boy?"

"The one you just talked to."

Maria looked down the street at the young man walking down the street. She did find it odd. He had a kind of feel to him that didn't really fit with anyone else. It was like he wasn't really from around here.

Or like he wasn't used to this time period.

She noticed him looking at buildings with confused looks and even staring a bit at someone's iPhone like he'd never seen one before. He was definitely weird.

"Anna. It's not nice to call people names. Besides, he looks pretty alive to me."

"But mommy, he's not. He's one of the ghosts in Specter House." Her daughter insisted, scared.

Maria frowned a bit more sternly. "Anna, he's just a boy. Don't go spreading rumors like that."

The rest of the day went by normally, but the next day she went for a walk with her daughter and husband. They lived a few blocks down on Specter Street. It was a bit cheaper because of the house at the end, but it was a nice neighborhood. Either way, it was somewhat fun to hear the ghost stories about the place.

That evening, her daughter was skipping ahead and her husband was smiling next to her. They got to the end of the Street where Anna stopped suddenly and stared at the Specter House.

"Anna, what's wrong?" Maria asked. Her daughter just stared at the burnt-out shell. Maria followed her gaze-

And felt her breath catch.

Through one of the windows on the second floor was a faint, blue light. She kept staring at the window and saw it was from a small circle, but it wasn't a candle or something.

It _floated_.

She was sure of it. The small, flickering circle was floating around the room, casting blue out the window.

Her husband gawked at the window. He'd always been a believer. That was part of why he enjoyed this neighborhood, but he'd never expected to see an actual ghost.

The orb floated around and Maria noticed a shadow come in between the window and the orb.

It was obviously a silhouette of a young boy with messy hair and somewhat baggy clothes.

The light went out and the room was dark and still like it had always been since they moved here. Maria looked at her awestruck husband when her daughter cleared her throat. She was smiling slightly at their expressions before stating calmly.

"See mommy, I told you he was a dead boy."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hahahaha! I loved writing that last one. I love those stories about kids saying, seeing, or doing creepy things like this. It's like "Poltergeist", but with less TV.<strong>

**If you're wondering about the library scene; yes, he phased his boxers through, it was just his jeans, shirt and shoes that didn't… *coughcoughpervertscough***

**The floating orbs are actually called "Hitodama". You've probably seen/heard of them if you watch any ghost-related animes. They're those little fire balls floating around Japanese ghosts. I figured it'd be a neat trick for him to have. A little OOC, but I want to have some fun, too. It's a bit more entertaining than just the "glowy palm" thing he normally does, though that'll make an appearance if necessary. And the glowing, blue orb thing set up the last few paragraphs perfectly!  
><strong>

**Yeah, I know hamburgers were around when Danny was alive (later half of the 20****th**** century for people speculating any earlier), but I bet they tasted a lot different back then, plus he hasn't eaten in 30 years.**

**I wanted to thank you guys. I'd actually forgotten about the "flashbacks" he'd been experiencing. I hadn't included any more originally, but after a few people pointing them out, I decided I wanted more of them throughout the plot as Danny explores. So, thanks guys!**

**Also, thank you to Wooster for telling me that the chapter didn't upload correctly. I'm not sure what happened, but if it ever happens again, nobody be afraid to PM me. I'll see what I can do.**

**This chapter (and ending Author Notes) is probably one of the longer ones, but it was pretty fun to write and I couldn't find a decent place to cut it for a new chapter.**

**The next one I want to put a bit more fluff in to space out the meaningful plot-driven stuff. Probably more teenage hanging out.**

**Hope you enjoyed this installment.**

**Until next time!**

**-Crow**


	5. Chapter 5

**SURPRISE! Fweee! Fweee! (paper noisemaker sounds)**

**This chapter is pretty short and relatively fluffy, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to put it in. Plus, I think I'm getting ahead with them. So, to brighten everyone's Monday; a new installment!**

**-Crow**

**I do not own Danny Phantom.**

* * *

><p><span>Chapter 5<span>

The next day, Danny woke up and briefly thought he was still in the Ghost Zone. He looked at the familiar scarred ceiling and wondered if it was all and elaborate, drawn-out dream. He looked outside the cracked window and smiled when he saw an honest-to-God sunrise.

The water didn't work in the house; not a surprise. Thankfully, he apparently didn't need to use it. Eating was a habit and he didn't really need it. Any mass from the meals seemed to just disappear and his teeth never got plaque or even smelled. For that matter, he never actually seemed to smell or sweat at all.

_Small bonus for being dead_. He thought.

He walked outside and found a bank sign that displayed the time in small lights. 5:43 AM.

He didn't need to be anywhere until 7:30 when school started, but decided to get there early and see what sort of clubs met.

Turns out, his "home" was actually within walking distance of the school. It was pretty convenient.

The school was empty save for track and football practicing in the back. Danny hung around the bleacher fence for a while, watching the athletes train. He was just about to walk away when he heard a loud sound followed by lots of cussing.

He walked over and saw an Asian guy in a football uniform under a bench press. The bar was against his chest and he was wheezing out curses. It was pretty obvious he was stuck.

"Hey, man, let me help you." Danny offered. He picked up the barbell to lift it off, but kept holding it when the jock let go. The guy's eyes widened when he saw the scrawny halfa lifting the barbell with only one hand. Danny didn't really know what to think.

"Y-You- you-…I-…wha-…" he stammered. Danny didn't really see his point. To him, the barbell was pretty light and the weights were small and- oh wait.

He tilted his head to see the numbers on the weights. 100 lbs and 50 lbs on each side plus the barbell. He was surprised at his own strength in human form. Ghosts were naturally a lot stronger than humans so that much was expected, but he didn't count on it transferring to his human half.

"Oh, hehe." He rubbed his neck nervously with his free hand. He heard the coach bark something and quickly set the barbell down in the slot on the bench press.

"Ishiyama! What's taking you?!" The overweight football coach shouted. The still-stunned jock shook himself out of it and looked at the irate, little man.

"S-sorry coach. I put too much weight on the bench. This guy helped me out though." He pointed to Danny who was sheepishly shrugging.

"It was no big deal." He offered.

The coach grunted thanks before turning back to the jock. "You know as well as anyone to lift with a spotter, Ishiyama!"

"Yes, sir." The jock followed the coach to the field to do more exercises. Danny stood there a little awkwardly before heading out to the main school building.

There were still no others here yet. He mostly just hung out and explored anywhere he could. The school had a couple floors to it, but most of the building looked pretty much the same. Soon, it got to 7:15 and more people showed up to mill around before class started.

Danny grabbed a few textbooks and notebooks from his locker before heading to his first class. Interestingly, it was still Mr. Lancer.

He settled down in time for the first bell and the teacher began lecturing about the works of Ray Bradbury.

Danny went through the day pretty much fine. Tucker and Sam had a few classes with him and shared a lunch, too. They almost blanched when he managed to eat whatever the mystery meat was.

He guessed that after eating some of Lunch Lady's meatloaf, he could eat anything. In all honesty, he liked her in a grandmother kind of way. She was a bit temperamental, but she always cooked something for the Christmas Party, even if it sometimes stared back at you.

He said goodbye to his friends at the end of the day and headed back down West Street. He hadn't gotten far when he heard a siren going off nearby. He looked through the windows of a bank to see three guys in stereotypical ski masks pointing a gun at a frantic banker.

The bank was being robbed!

He didn't know why, but he felt compelled to help. He ducked into an alley and let the white rings wash over him. He figured it would be better that his human half didn't get too much attention.

He tucked his backpack somewhere safe before he flew out. He phased through a glass window and stopped floating for a second to put his feet on the ground. He didn't really know how this whole "superhero" thing worked, but he vaguely remembered a few comics from when he was alive.

"Stop, villains!" Dang. You know how something sounds good in your head, but when you say it, it's just plain cheesy?

* * *

><p>Allen McCreevy was a gambler. That much was known by his now-ex-wife and lost-custody-kid. He'd been in way over his head in debt and really needed the money. So, when he caught wind of two other guys pulling off a heist, he jumped right in.<p>

That day, everything went to plan. The bank tellers were on the ground along with everyone else. The alarm got tripped, but he doubted the police in this run-down town would get here before they snagged some cash.

They had a few duffle bags filled with wads of cash. They would check for the dye packs later. Right now, their priority was to get out of dodge.

"Stop, villains!"

He turned around, confused. He almost wanted to laugh. There was some weird kid standing there in a superhero getup. He wore a form-fitting spandex suit with some weird symbol on it and he'd even dyed his hair some stupid color.

Right now the kid was standing at the exit, wincing after realizing just how lame his phrase was. Allen decided to have some fun. After all, it was just some stupid kid.

"Oh no, boys. Look, it's Captain Spandex to the rescue!" The others got a chuckle before resuming packing away the money. "Hey, kid, ya wanna play superhero? Well, everyone knows a superhero's gotta be invincible. Hows about we test it out, see how "immortal" ya really are. I'll give ya until 3 then I shoot. Capische?"

Danny's steely gaze didn't waver at all. He stood where he was.

"1…"

Danny didn't move.

"2…"

People flinched at the sound of him pumping the gun.

"2 and a half…"

Allen was getting unnerved by his own joke. The guns were real, but he'd hoped they'd be for show. No sane person really likes to kill someone. But this kid wasn't backing down. Maybe he'd just scare him a bit more-

RATATATAT!

It took a minute for him to come to his senses. He'd fired by accident, hoping to keep scaring the kid by having his finger on the trigger, but his finger twitched and the semi-automatic just went off.

Witnesses gasped as they saw the young boy be pushed back slightly, sporting a few holes in his chest. For a moment, Allen stood there with the other two guys tensed at the situation.

_They'd just freaking killed someone!_

He thought he was going to be sick. The kid was hunched over slightly, probably bleeding out in a few minutes! This was not part of the plan! This was-

"Heh, is that the best you got?"

He snapped his head up and gaped as the kid started coughing roughly into his hand before showing four bullets in his hand. Four bullets. Four holes. Four Shots.

All four were covered in glowing, green slime.

And the holes in his chest were closing up fast.

"Guys get outta here!" He shouted to the others.

He got into the van with the rest and watched as the white-haired kid walked calmly out of the bank as they sped off. He thought they lost him as he shrank in the distance, but spotted a figure in the sky getting closer to the speeding car. He almost lost it when the figure came into focus. It was the same white-haired kid… but his legs became some black, wiggly tail!

The pretty-much-confirmed superhero smirked with some kind of amusement as he put his fingers in the gun pose kids used when playing Cowboy. Unlike kids playing cowboy, his index finger started glowing the same greenish tinge as the stuff on the bullets.

Then, like some kind of movie or cartoon (**AN: *wink***), a green laser shot out of the kid's hand and hit the car's tires. The car started careening out of control and Allen along with the other two braced themselves to impact a tree, when they suddenly stopped.

He opened his eyes and looked right into the glowing green ones of the white-haired-kid, currently holding up the car one-handed to prevent it from crashing. He was honestly too dumbstruck to move. He was only vaguely aware of police sirens closing in.

Within seconds, the Amity Police Force had them surrounded. He and his comrades-in-crime cooperatively left the van and walked to the waiting handcuffs the officers had. Meanwhile, the kid just stood there, watching them closely. The police caught on that he was part of it all and surrounded him as well.

One of the officers walked up to the kid. "Hey there. We need you to come down to the station with us. We've got some questions for you."

The kid didn't say anything, but grinned at everyone there before fading away.

Allen honestly had to bite the inside of his mouth to ensure he wasn't hallucinating. The kid just faded right out of existence. An officer even waved his arm where the kid was and it came up flat.

_Another sucker's gamble_. He thought wryly as the squad car drove off.

* * *

><p>Danny chuckled slightly to himself as the officers and robbers left and he flew off to his home after getting his backpack. He just went invisible and intangible, but made it happen slower to give it effect. He definitely catalogued that one away.<p>

It took a while for him to get over the rush. He didn't know why, but it felt pretty good to do what he did. Just for fun, he took a spare, slightly burnt, bed sheet from the linen closet and tied it around his neck like a cape.

He looked himself in the mirror, put his hands son his hips and said in a comically "Captain America" voice.

"Fear not citizens! It is I, Danny Phantom, here to save the day!" He managed to keep a straight face for five seconds before dissolving into laughter. "Yeah, right" he choked out before tossing the sheet back into the closet and changed back to Danny Fenton.

He still couldn't get over that. It just felt right.

Danny Fenton, in this room, in this town…

It just felt…familiar.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I needed Danny to start up with the whole "hero" thing. That's the basis of the entire series, after all. (I even gave a little hint of the "Hero Danny Split" episode towards the end there.)<strong>

**I'll probably not have too many ghost villains (after all, they are his friends in the Ghost Zone [more on that later]), though I'll definitely have a "Plasmius" in there sometime. You'll see how I make that one work.**

**Just a warning, this will include the GIW. I want you guys to know that I hate them with a passion and can't stand them in **_**any**_** fanfic. However, when I make a main villain, I refuse to make some pansy "bad-guy". So, these GIW will not be comically OCD. If anything, it'll make it more badass when they ignore the blood and soot on the uniforms and come after Danny.**

**If you want, I've been meaning to put up a fanfic called "Catharsis" where I vent my anger in creative and disturbing scenarios for the villains of series that really make it unpleasant to read or you just love to hate them; i.e. Dolores Umbridge, the GIW, the Dursleys, etc. If I've put it up, you're welcome to read it any time you feel like you want the GIW to suffer a horrifying and painful death/justice. :) **

**For anyone wondering about the whole bathroom and shower thing, the house is abandoned. Naturally water got shut off. The way I figure, since he was a ghost first and then became human, some of the more… human necessities… don't apply. Just roll with it, it'll get weird otherwise.**

**Kwan will be a good guy here. I've read a lot of other fics and he really doesn't seem like a mirror to Dash, just a childhood friend who hangs out with him because of that friendship, but doesn't have the same bullying complex.**

**As for Allen McCreevy, I wanted to put more background to my people. I read "Symbiosis" by ConstructiveWriter (great work, too though really, **_**really**_** dark) and he/she put a lot of backstory to people. Even if they were just for a second, they were named figures with a past instead of Goon #5, Trainer #7, Guy-Who-Gets-Killed-First # 18, etc.**

**I wanted to give them a bit of a past to the character instead of just letting them walk in and walk right out.**

**The gun scene was actually what prompted me to upgrade the rating on this. I think I'll keep it at Teen, though. Some of the fights might get messy later on. Plus, I just used "badass" in this AN a few paragraphs ago… so… yeah…**

**I hope you enjoyed!**

**Until next time!**

**-Crow**


	6. Chapter 6

**I apologize to everyone for last chapter. I had tried posting it, but had some problems uploading the "Catharsis" story, so it wasn't available or viewable when I posted the previous chapter.**

**I am pleased to say that it is now up and running and that the first chapter is pretty satisfactory in my opinion. I'm always looking for inspiration or suggestions on horrifyingly painful deaths for any truly hate-worthy character in the Danny Phantom series.**

**Also be on the lookout for its sister fanfiction for Harry Potter. I have several ideas in the works for a one Dolores Umbridge.**

**Muahahaha! Ahahahah! AHAHAHAHAHAHA ha *cough* *cough* *hack* *wheeze***

**Ow.**

**Still don't own Danny Phantom.**

**-Crow**

* * *

><p><span>Chapter 6<span>

The next day, Danny arrived to school and started looking around for Sam and Tucker.

He was walking along the locker banks when he suddenly felt a hand on the back of his shoulder. Before he could process it, he was suddenly slammed against the lockers with a CLANG! He blinked daze out of his eyes before focusing on the figure in front of him.

He had close-cropped blonde hair, a Casper High football jacket, and a ridiculously top-heavy build that left Danny wondering how he managed to stay upright with so much upper-body muscle mass being supported on little stick-legs.

Said figure sneered at him. "So, you're the new meat. Some wimpy geek like that emo chick and tech nerd you hang out with."

"Hey!" Said a familiar, female voice from the crowd. Sam Manson started pushing her way through the gathering spectators. "I resent that. I'm Goth, not emo."

The jock rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Manson. So, new kid, this is how it works around here. You're the bottom of the barrel and I'm what's called an "A-Lister". We're pretty much the top dogs of the school. So when I say "jump" you say "how high", got it?"

Danny didn't have time to respond before he was shoved into a nearby locker. Despite protesting from people around him, the jock spun the dial and left as the bell rang.

Danny heard his Goth friend calling his name through the locker slats and mentioned finding the janitor. Danny heard her walk away before phasing his invisible head through the locker. With no one looking, he phased the rest of himself out. Sam came back with a mustached old man with a mop and a ring of keys.

"Wait, Danny, how'd you get out?"

"Oh, well, I guess Dash didn't close it as well as he thought. I just pushed against the locker and it opened up. I actually just closed it out of habit, though." Danny was actually slightly impressed he was getting better at this whole "lying" thing.

Sam nodded before walking with him to Lancer's.

"So, you've met Dash." She said.

"Yeah, what's up with him?"

"I think it's some superiority complex. He's part of this group that calls themselves the A-listers. They're comprised of the "cool" kids; the rich, the jocks, the poster-perfect-models, and the wannabes who've sucked up enough to get there."

Danny nodded. He'd met Poindexter and heard plenty of rants about the nuisances of bullies and the "popular kids".

They kept chatting as until they reached Lancer's class in time for the bell.

* * *

><p>Frank the Janitor was left back at the locker the kid was shoved into. He just shook his head at the injustice of it.<p>

As a janitor, he didn't really have much say in anything that happened in the school and knew that Principal Ishiyama would favor her son's friend and the star athlete of the school along with the rest of the faculty. The kid needed a serious reality check that the world did not revolve around him and life didn't offer everything on a silver platter.

He walked up to the locker and examined the door. His eyebrows knitted together as he looked closer at the lock.

The locking mechanism was completely broken. Not just that, but it was broken in a way that it would take a lot of force to open it back up again. He guessed it was from that Baxter kid slamming it shut.

But that raised the question.

How did that kid get out?

Frank looked at the couple walking away towards their next class.

Either that Danny kid could walk through walls or he was one heck of an escape artist.

* * *

><p>Aside from that unpleasant episode in the morning, Danny had to say that the day was going pretty well in his opinion.<p>

After school, he met the Goth and the beret-wearing techie at the front lawn of the building.

"Hey, dude, we were going to the arcade. Did you want to come?" Tucker offered. Danny immediately accepted and followed them to a newer building on the other side of town.

The place was huge. A lot bigger than the one Danny remembered. What's more, he looked around at the bright, flashing lights of the environment and the loud sounds and screens. He froze in awe at the massive amount of technology.

"Hey, man, are you alright?" Tucker asked. Danny nodded quickly.

"Yeah… just… Wow!" He managed.

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "Wait, don't they have arcades up in Canada?"

Danny smiled. "Nothing like this!"

Sam came over with a few bags of quarters and they went all out. Danny quickly learned the basics of the racing games and Skii-ball. He was a bit uncomfortable with the House of the Dead IV game. After all, technically he _was_ dead.

They explored the entire arcade until they came to the back corner of the place. There was an old-fashioned arcade machine there with a large, modern TV hooked up above it displaying what was on the old machine.

"What's the deal with this thing?" Danny asked.

"It's Guardian." Tucker explained. "This arcade used to be on Krueger before they moved it here. This game was leftover from the old location. It's one of the hardest games ever designed."

"Why'd they keep it?" Danny asked.

"It's a challenge. The leaderboard is sort of an exclusive place in here. They get free access to the games here along with two other people as long as their score is on the board. The last person to get on it was in the tenth place slot almost a decade ago. No one's gotten close to the number one spot in a long time."

"Who got the number one spot?"

"It's a legend, man!" The trio were startled by the sudden appearance of one of the pasty, pimply employees. He ignored their surprise and went on. "There was one boy with enough skill and courage to make it to the top. He fought valiantly and in the end discovered a long-lost secret in the game by pure chance. With this in hand, he acquired the legendary top position."

"Then what?" Danny asked, unnerved by the weird story-telling employee.

"He vanished. He was never seen from again and legend has it that he was too much for this world and ascended to the realm of the video game Gods! The secret has been lost through time and not even those who saw it could tell you exactly what he did.

"Some say that his hand was pure luck, others say fate, still others say that he became one with the machine in that instant. That was all the way back in the renowned year of nineteen hundred and two after eight decades."

"You mean 1982?" Danny clarified.

"Yeah, man. Sorry, I get kinda Dungeons and Dragons whenever it's brought up."

Danny nodded before looking down at his bag. He still had one quarter left and the game only took the one.

He walked up to the arcade game and put in his quarter. Within seconds, he was fighting hordes of demons on the screen. Sam and Tucker started cheering him on as they watched the large TV displaying the fight for the arcade to see.

Almost an hour later, Danny was still kicking butt on the machine. By now, he'd gathered a majority of the arcade's clients who'd formed a betting pool around him and were cheering him on.

He'd just gotten to a certain point. He was nowhere near the leaderboard scores, but he was pretty far up for someone on his first try.

_He heard everyone else behind him, completely ignoring the "wakawakawaka" of the PacMan and the *ding* from the Pinball machines. This game was only just released a week before and he was already almost at 10,000 points. Almost enough to reach the pretty low-score leaderboard._

_ He saw an attack coming and had to react, he punched the figure before trying to fireball it. He accidentally hit the "start" button again, tried to avoid an attack by jumping and jerking to the right, followed by punching the ork to death and spin cycling into a nearby chest._

_ Everyone gasped as the chest opened-_

Danny blinked. He was getting close to another room.

It had one ork and a chest on the side.

_Well, what do I have to lose?_ He figured

Punch figure. Start. Jump. Right. Punch (death), spin-cycle chest.

The entire arcade went silent as the chest opened. The figure picked up the item inside and displayed it. It looked like Clockwork's staff if it was redesigned by Technus and the US military.

Everyone read the small text underneath.

'You got the Infinity Staff' (**AN: dun dun dun daaaah [Zelda])**

Danny walked the character out of the area and went to the next room to test it out.

One shot kill to every enemy.

"The legend" whispered the awestruck employee.

Over the next forty minutes Danny blasted through level after level. Every nerd had texted their friends. The arcade was packed with people all there to witness "the Legend".

Then, Danny got to a final room. In it was a boss with 1,000,000 HP and no shoot-the-big-eyeball target or obvious weak spot. For a full thirty minutes he slowly wore down the boss until it finally fell.

Everyone went into a hushed silence as the game read out: "You Won".

Pandemonium erupted when the fabled leaderboard popped up and at the very top, in the mystical first-place was a new slot awaiting Danny's code next to the 10,000,000 point record.

He punched in "Danny F." and hit enter. Everyone cheered (and a few sobbed) at the moment in Nerd-dom history. A few actually ordered pizza to the place with soda to commemorate the occasion.

Danny and Tucker eagerly walked over with the rest to the feast. Sam stayed behind. She smiled at Danny's reaction to the grape and orange-flavored sodas, but kept looking back at the old leaderboard.

Under the slot where Danny had punched in his name was the original first-place holder from 1982.

"Danny F."

* * *

><p>After the celebration at the arcade, the trio went back out to town, Tucker still fan-guying over Danny.<p>

"Oh, man. You gotta teach me that Easter egg! How did you get it? Please? Please?" He begged.

Danny smirked. "Sorry Tuck, I'm not even sure what happened." He took on an unfocused look and mumbled. "It was like the game called to me. I felt like I was one with the machine."

Tucker had been fantasizing about cyborgs and human-machine symbiosis since he first picked up a phone. He completely missed the sarcasm in Danny's response and now held a sort of reverence to the thought.

Danny didn't feel too guilty about it. After all, if he did tell Tucker, then everyone would know the secret and the leaderboard would be useless. As it was, he'd already bagged free games for pretty much eternity for the trio (given how long it took anyone to get even 10th place).

The three went into the Amity Park Bakery. Each ordered a cinnamon bun and Sam ordered an organic black tea with hers. Danny took a bite out of the cinnamon bun.

_He looked at his family as he munched on the bun. These were definitely the best in town. It always cheered him up._

_ On bad days…_

_ He would wish he had a cinnamon bun from the bakery on Krueger Street_.

He jolted in his seat.

"What's up, Danny?" Sam asked.

"It's nothing. This was just a really good cinnamon bun."

Danny finished his bun relatively quickly and took the wrapper the bun came in and fiddled with it. Sam was busy sipping her tea and looking pensively out the window. Tucker was tapping away on his 'PDA'.

"Hey, Danny, you know origami?" Sam asked.

Danny was confused before he looked down. His wrapper had become a small, paper flower. He was startled at the subconscious act. "I guess so."

Sam soon finished her mug and they all went up to throw away their garbage. Danny, however, felt compelled to take the paper flower and put it on top of the register. Neither of the other two questioned it; they thought it looked pretty good.

They left the restaurant and said goodbye as they left for their own separate homes.

* * *

><p>Agatha Gray had been in the bakery since she got it from her parents. She always loved baking so she'd been helping in the shop since she was five years old back in 1958.<p>

The old lady was fond of still walking around the bakery, helping in small ways even though she was officially "retired". Whenever she wasn't at the bakery, she'd usually meet up with Ida Manson and chat.

She was considered a bit eccentric by her family. She had a small collection of small, paper flowers that never left her bedroom. She'd had them since any of them could remember and would never throw any of them away.

She told the story to her granddaughter, though. The grandmother was losing heart when the bakery wasn't doing too well back in the late 70's. Then, a young boy (around 8 or 9 at the time) showed his appreciation by making small flowers out of the paper from the cinnamon buns he was so fond of.

He would give one to her every time he visited, leaving it perched on the register. Eventually, her business bounced back, but she never got his name and forgot to ask every time he'd come over. After some time, his visits stopped abruptly and she never heard or saw him again.

The old woman walked around the restaurant around closing time that night. Watching some teenagers and a young couple heading out for the night. She turned to the counter to clean up.

She paused and picked up the small, paper flower made from the wrapper of a pastry. She took a sniff of the wrapper.

Cinnamon and sugar.

She smiled warmly at the small present and added it to her small collection upstairs.

_Wait until Ida hears about this one_. She thought.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I love the warm, cozy ghost stories like this. Not to say I don't completely love the scary ones (I <strong>_**really**_** do), but every now and then a story like this where the grandmother gets an origami figure from the grandson who died just warms my chest cavity (a running joke in the family. Chest cavity because "I have no heart". Lol).**

**To everyone out there, thanks to your comments I realized something; Danny Phantom wouldn't be the same without his main thing: _Fighting Ghosts_. I said earlier I wouldn't have too many ghostly enemies, but I think I've found a way for him to fight his ghostly friends as they cause mayhem and for it to work out without compromising the secret or his family's portal. I'm always open to suggestions from you. This is pretty much unknown territory for me and I want to make it progress without using too much fluff and making it too deviated from the original Danny Phantom premise. Any help, criticism, suggestions, or comments/reviews are welcome!**

**I just wanted to say, Winter Break for me is almost over. I'll be returning to college soon and I won't be able to update as often as I want. I've been trying to update on Friday every week, but it may have anywhere between one to three weeks between updates. It shouldn't be over 3 weeks, but college does have to take precedence.**

**I had a bunch of chapters in advance (like 10), but after reading and reviewing, I've been rearranging them so there is more flow and it doesn't seem quite as compacted and excessively quick, but I hope to avoid pure fluffiness for too many.**

**I hope you enjoyed this nice, fluff-filled chapter!**

**Until next time!**

**-Crow**


	7. Chapter 7

**Warning**

**Warning**

**Warning**

**Warning: "Feels" will be damaged in this chapter, but questions **_**will be**_** answered.**

**This is NOT completely fluff. This is plot progression at long last.**

**At this moment, please open a new tab containing colorful pictures of kittens in snuggly blankets, grab some tea, chocolates, and/or beloved family pet, and find somewhere you won't disturb others in the event of a "feels-overload".**

**I apologize to 13BlueBananas. I said I wouldn't put your "feels" through a wringer, but I think ended up doing so.**

**Still don't own Danny Phantom.**

**Yours Sincerely,**

**-The Smiling Crow**

* * *

><p><span>Chapter 7<span>

It was Saturday. Danny had arranged the night before to meet with Sam and Tucker. He told them his home phone number wasn't up yet, so they couldn't call him. When he said he didn't have something called an "eye-phone", Tucker almost fainted.

He made it to the park and found Sam and Tucker by the gates. In minutes, they were all lounging on the grass. Tucker was mostly on his PDA while Sam was chatting animatedly with a hippie drummer who'd set up a few meters away. (**AN: Woo! Metric! I'm a scientist. Metric is science-friendly.**)

Danny was just enjoying the peaceful day. The sun was shining, the clouds weren't terrible. Everything was going grea-

His thoughts were cut off by a low growl.

He looked up to see a large Siberian husky dog baring its teeth at him. He looked confusedly at the dog before he heard a kid calling out.

"Smile! Smile! There you are!" The maybe-14-year-old in a white hoodie quickly rushed over to the dog and put a leash on the collar. The entire time, the husky didn't stop looking at Danny or growling. The owner seemed genuinely surprised at this behavior and turned to Danny. Danny was a bit startled to notice that the entire time, his smile didn't falter and his eyes didn't seem to blink as he kept talking. "I'm sorry. Smile doesn't normally act up like this. He's really pretty nice. I've got no idea why he'd start growling like this, though."

Danny smiled at the owner and waved his hand. "It's no deal. I bet he just smells our cat on me." The owner seemed satisfied with that and dragged the still-growling canine away.

Danny frowned internally, though. He was willing to bet that like the little girl, the dog knew something was "off" about him too.

He looked around. Tucker had walked away to try to get a better signal and Sam looked like she was still really engaged in that conversation with the hippie.

He sighed in relief before laying back down. He didn't notice that Tucker's phone had full bars in the area and said teen was using the dark desktop of his phone as a mirror to watch the whole thing.

* * *

><p>They managed to drag Sam away from the hippie before she started adopting bell-bottoms and wearing daisy crowns. When they said this aloud, she said resented that… she'd only use dead roses for her flower crowns.<p>

To make up for their comment, Sam led them to one of her own, personal favorite hotspots. A dark stairwell going under a coffee shop.

Sam stood at the black door at the bottom and took up a "feature presentation" pose. "Gentleman and Lady Tucker (Hey!). May I have the honor of presenting to you-" She opened the door.

"-The Macabre Menagerie!"

Inside was a collection of everything remotely Goth. Various animal skulls lined shelves on the walls next to leather-bound tomes. Antique, wooden Ouija boards were hung on the walls. The clientele were mirror images of the merchandise. They even saw one guy wearing a full cloak in the back area.

Tucker visibly huddled behind Danny as the intrigued raven-haired teen walked further in. Sam waved comfortably to the sulking, make-up-wearing guy behind the register. "Hey Damien, what's new?"

The cashier snorted. "My name's not "Damien". I have discovered my true name from the darkness of my soul. My name is Alucard."

Sam rolled her eyes before commenting. "Seriously, man. Last week it was Damien, the week before was Lucifer. Even after your own grandma beat you with her purse for calling yourself that. Are you ever going to just pick a name and stick with it?"

The cashier looked miffed at it, but didn't have a comeback. "So, 'Alucard', what's new?"

He perked up (well, as much as a Goth can, at least) and replied. "We got some crow skulls in the back just in. We've also got your standard brewing kit refills. And take a look at this!"

He picked up a small flower pot from behind the counter. Inside was a small, black plant with spiky thorns and deep, red rose-like flowers. "Real Blood Blossoms!"

Danny's eyes widened visibly and he backed away slowly from the counter. Sam noticed the action out of the "cursed spherical mirror of security" (literally, it had a little, bronze plaque underneath it) hanging behind the counter.

"Uh, no thanks, Al. I don't have any space in my greenhouse, yet. I'll come by later, though."

"Alucard" looked absolutely devastated. "Oh God, I never thought about that lame nickname. Oh man! "Al"? That is, like, the epitome of lame! Sorry, Sam, I need to look through a few name websites." He hurried to the back room, probably looking through baby name sites for his new re-re-christened title. (**AN: To people named Al, I actually like the name. My best-friend-through-middle-school's name was Alex and everyone loves Alphonse Elric, so you've got some things going for your nickname. I just thought a Goth would hate being called that.**)

Danny muttered to Sam. "So, what's his real name?"

She snickered as she replied. "Brian Summers. He's mortified of it."

Danny explored the other end of the shop, looking through the various knick knacks. A small bottle of red liquid caught his attention. He slowly reached out and yanked his hand back when he felt like he'd just touched residual acid on the glass.

Sam noticed his reaction and looked at the newly re-christened "Jedediah". "Hey, Jed, what's with the vial?"

The teen sulked. "Aw man, I was hoping I'd end up with "Dead" or "Diah"; it's in the name, you know. Anyway, that vial is actually a pressed extract of those blood blossoms I told you about earlier mixed with some other stuff. It's supposed to be wickedly powerful in potions and junk. Especially against ghosts. Everyone on the internet says it's supposed to make ghosts unable to do that freaky ghostly stuff and easier to exorcise."

Sam nodded while Danny looked slightly panicked.

He hid his hand as best he could, though it'd be easy to hide. The stuff made his hand completely invisible against his will. At the moment, he could feel it swapping between invisibility and intangibility.

Whatever the stuff was, it worked as advertized. It screwed with ghosts' abilities even in human form.

He stuck close to Sam as she kept perusing the shelves with Tucker cowering behind a book stack from a grinning skull on a pedestal.

His hand kept acting up, though the effects were quickly wearing off. At the moment, his hand was wiggling like his tail when he was flying, but snapped back into a hand before Sam looked up.

Out of pure luck, when she looked away, his hand changed again. This time, only partially going invisible and showing off the hand bones perfectly. He quickly hid the skeletal appendage behind his back as the Goth kept going around.

They kept browsing, Danny avoiding a few objects that seemed to react to him. A toy music box started playing when he walked by although the owner swore it was broken. A book opened by itself to a page with the chapter heading being "Ghosts". Sam waved it off as a "draft", though made sidelong glances at the book when Danny looked away.

What drew the line for Danny, though, was when he swore a shriveled cat mummy lifted its head straight at him.

He told Sam he'd meet her outside. It'd give him time to let the effects wear off. After phasing through the doorknob a few times, his hand regained solidity and he walked back up the stairs.

After about five minutes, the random power fluctuations stopped altogether and he regained control. Though, he made a mental note to try out more powers in human form later on.

Sam came up with a relieved Tucker and a few books in her hands. Danny was relieved to see they were just some mumbo-jumbo occult stuff.

"Ready to go?"

Sam nodded. What Danny didn't know was that she had secretly placed another order to be picked up later. A blood blossom plant, the vial of potion along with the recipe book, and the book that "caught the draft" with a bookmark on the chapter it opened to.

She knew she'd get answers from them.

She had to know more about the mysterious "Danny Fenton".

* * *

><p>Danny was laying in bed that night, currently floating about a foot and a half above the covers. He'd experimented with his powers in human form after getting back home from their outing.<p>

So far, he'd discovered he retained a little bit of levitation and flight, invisibility, intangibility, weak ectoblasts, and his blue flame trick. He discovered that he could mix intangibility with invisibility to make a semi-transparent appearance, so he counted that too.

He'd accidentally cut himself on some homework paper and discovered that, while his blood was surprisingly human red, it retained a few flecks of the ghostly green of ectoplasm. He guessed he'd have to look into that with his parents' equipment.

Speaking of-

Danny floated down to the bed and headed downstairs to the burnt kitchen. He opened the door in the corner to the same set of decayed stairs. He smirked and willed himself to levitate a few inches before drifting into the inky dark.

He landed on the solid tiles of the room and pulsed some ectoplasm into four or five of the glowing orbs. The orbs drifted apart, sending blue light around the lab like small, floating lanterns.

He was actually surprised at the appearance. It was almost exactly like his parents' other lab in the Ghost Zone. Brightly colored chemicals and crystals were in the chemistry sets and dusty equipment lined the walls and tables.

Or at least what was left.

Most of the glassware was pretty much powder and remaining beakers and apparatus were heavily fractured. The screens were broken and bundles of frayed wires hung from the ceiling. The air still had a faint tinge of ozone, smoke, and chemicals even after all this time.

What caught Danny's attention was the scorch marks. The walls, floor, ceiling all had black lines and smudges radiating on them. Danny followed the burn shadows of tables and the streaks of heat to-

He stood there, looking back at the streaks, rereading the patterns, but it all led to the same conclusion.

Sitting in the wall on the opposite end of the lab, was the epicenter of the explosion. Two, broken, yellow-and-black-striped doors were a wrecked mangle of metal in front of an equally destroyed chamber of electrical nodes.

It was what his parents had been working on their entire afterlives. And apparently their entire lives as well.

Here, in the mortal realm, were the destroyed remains of the exact same portal his parents created in the Ghost Zone.

Danny's mind was reeling with the new knowledge. He knew his parents were obsessed with science in life, but he didn't know what kind. He'd never asked. He just assumed that it was "science", but looking back they never did explain if it was physics, chemistry, biology, or even quantum mechanics.

(**AN: Brace yourselves.**)

He kept looking around the room, watching the patterns in the walls-

…

…

For a minute, he could only stare.

There among the black streaks on the walls were two imprints against the faded scorch marks. One was large with two massive arms, the other was slender with discernible hips.

He knew those figures anywhere.

"Mom. Dad." He whispered.

He always knew his parents died. Heck he'd been living with his dead parents for the past 30 years. But seeing evidence of their bodies was something else. It was almost surreal to think that his parents were charred to skeletons right there and those imprints were left behind.

He turned to leave before the tears started up.

(**AN: **_**Really**_** brace yourselves now.)**

…

…

There was one more on the floor.

It was faded with time, but Danny could make out the burn shadow of a small figure in the prone fetal position on the floor.

He didn't realize it until he'd morphed into Phantom mode. He felt compelled to stand right next to it-

"_The EM field's not holding!"_

_The contact sparked and a klaxon alarm sounded._

'_Jack! Turn up the flux! We're getting too much gamma!'_

'_The system won't respond!'_

_The portal got brighter as more electricity flowed into it._

'_There's too much strain on the field!'_

_Sparks flew as various pipes and wires exploded. Danny could practically feel the energy pulsating through the lab. Arcs of electricity flew around trying to find the source of least resistance._

_Unfortunately, one of those paths of least resistance was him._

_He felt the arc of energy go through his outstretched arm. As he felt the arc pass through his heart, he wondered if this was how Adam felt in the Sistine chapel painting touching God's outstretched hand._

_He collapsed to the ground. His vision dimming as his now-still heart stopped pumping blood._

"_DANNY!"_

"_JACK! THE CAPACITOR'S OVERLOADING! IT CAN'T HANDL-"_

_The glow in the chamber turned a brilliant red before swirling into the middle. The wavy energy seemed to implode into the center before crackling and condensing into a brighter sphere of energy._

"_Mom! Dad!"_

"_Jazz, get out! GET-!"_

_The world dimmed completely and the voices started fading. He barely heard the whine of the energy reaching a climax before-_

_Nothing._

Danny slowly came to his senses.

He didn't even wipe away his first tears in almost three decades that had formed in his eyes and were dripping down his face to the scorch marks on the floor.

He just stayed there in the lab.

Perfectly aligned with his own silhouette burned into the floor.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I know nobody was expecting anything like this, but after updating it to Teen, I feel I'm not as restricted anymore. We all knew this was coming. The huge back-story moment for Danny. In all honesty, the last few paragraphs wrote themselves. Of course, I didn't let it get out of control, but it just seemed too perfect for the tragedy.<strong>

**If anyone didn't notice, I re-used the flashback from chapter 1 and completed it.**

**I apologize to everyone's "feels". If it's any comfort, this will probably be the **_**only**_** sad bit in the fic for a **_**long**_** time. At this point, I'd recommend hugging that family pet or looking at the kitten pictures I had you prepare. If you didn't, I'd recommend them now.**

**On happier notes, for those who know, Smile the Siberian Husky Dog! I am a huge Creepypasta fan. I've loved them since I discovered them two years ago. No, this does not mean that the young guy was Jeff or that Smile was the actual , but it's still a nice cameo. Who knows, I might bring them in for Halloween…**

**For the goth shop, that cat mummy isn't actually all fake. The "lifting its head" is though. My family goes on a vacation to this national park every year or so and we pass by an antiques store. Every time, we go through just to look around only buying every now and then. It's not one of those really neat-and-tidy-china-and-lace antique stores, it's one of the hodge-podge kind (the best kind). As far as any of us can remember, in one of the glass cases next to odd bits of clocks and jewelry has been a mummified cat's body that the display tag says was found behind a hay bale in a barn and sells for $30.**

**For anyone named Brian Summers, that was a name I pulled out of the air. Any resemblances to anyone living or dead are completely coincidental.**

**Thanks for reading!**

**I hope you enjoyed this installment (most of it, at least)!**

**Until next time!**

**-The Smiling Crow**


	8. Chapter 8

**SURPRISE! *Fweee fweee* (paper noisemaker sounds)**

**OH IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK!**

**Hello everyone! It's your favorite cordial Corvid here.**

**Guess what? I'm still swamped with work, but I got inspired to write and the chapter came through! After my Physics Midterm, a lot of time opened up (temporarily until the Final in March), so I got some time to kill to do my writing!**

**I want to thank you all so much for your support. **

**I also wanted to thank 13BlueBananas for helping me decide on a concept and for helping to collaborate on this chapter. So, as a thank you, I included someone who I think you'll enjoy.**

**I hope you all enjoy the story.**

**Sincerely,**

**-Crow**

* * *

><p>The Phantom Household was buzzing with activity. Jazz had long-since left for Ghost Writer's library to get some quiet, but passing ghosts could still hear the cacophony of buzzing saws and the crackling of welding emanating from the floating building.<p>

To say Jack and Maddie were "excited" would be an understatement. It would be like saying Clockwork would be "mildly surprised" when something he _didn't_ know happened or saying Ember was "kind of egocentric". The two scientist-ghosts were literally flying around their laboratory chatting animatedly about this wire, that conduit, this readout.

They had taken preliminary calculations and data from the portal and had deemed it ready for experimental testing. At the moment, they were modifying the containment field and rift-support keeping the portal's induced tear-in-the-fabric-of-space-and-time within the confines of their set-up.

When Maddie finally slowed down for a breather (or… whatever you call a break when you don't have any breath), she glanced at the readouts and frowned. "Honey."

Jack stopped his job mid-weld to come over to his wife. "What is it, Mads?"

"These readouts are a bit sketchy. Here, the phase difference of the ecto-electrons is a bit wide. We could be getting some major interference. (**AN: Quantum. It gets to you after a while.**) Also, take a look at this. The display says there's some kind of feedback into the system."

Jack nodded as he analyzed this new information. "So, if we activate the experiment now, we run the risk of containment breaches in the portal's induced frequency. Or we could discover a way to grab Mortal-Realm fudge through the portal."

The husband and wife shared a glance and Jack flew to a bright red button on the control panel.

"BANZAI!"

* * *

><p>A familiar ghost drifted through the Ghost Zone thinking about… triangles of all things. <em>Sheesh, I don't understand some people. Why would Triangle Ghost like those stupid inferior-three-sided polygons? They cannot compare to the magnificent glory of the square.<em>

He was brought out of his musings by a loud explosion coming from the Phantom Household. He laughed quietly. They were probably the most eccentric family in the entire Ghost Zone. He wasn't worried about the explosion. Those happened every other Thursday for them. Plus, since they're dead there is no feasible way an explosion could kill them.

His chuckling suddenly stopped when he felt some kind of-

_Felt?_

The air (or lack thereof) felt suddenly full of static, like a lightning storm. The static shifted and seemed to focus in on one specific point about a meter in front of him.

Suddenly, the space in front of him ripped open like a cloth backdrop. Between the ragged edges of the tear was a swirling green that was almost hypnotic to look at.

The ghost suddenly realized his fortune. Every specter in the Ghost Zone knew about natural portals! Any ghost worth their obsession knew that a natural portal was probably a 1/1000 chance to let them back to the Mortal Realm to act on their desires.

He flew straight into the portal and saw it close behind him, but couldn't care less. He looked around where he ended up.

It was a pretty stylish house someone was moving into.

Someone who hadn't unpacked everything yet.

Someone with boxes.

The Box Ghost grinned mischievously.

* * *

><p>"Come on! This way!"<p>

"Ugh! Give it up, Anna. There's no way ghosts exist."

Anna Burton pouted at her two friends, Ben Wasser and Sally Lindermann, as they made their way from her house that afternoon. Anna was in her usual red dress and white jacket with a small shopping bag at her side. Ben had a small green knit-cap over his messy blonde head and a green T-shirt with the Legend of Zelda Hyrule emblem with a gray hoodie over it for the Autumn chill. Sally wore her usual pink dress that went to her knees with a darker pink jacket over it.

Ben was grumbling the entire time about "stupid baby games" while Sally ignored him. Ben, being the "responsible" 9 year old was watching over the 5 year old Burton Child. Sally, his 8 year old cousin, tagged along at Anna's request.

Sally didn't mind. The younger girl had grown on her quickly. She met Anna because their parents were friends and Anna met Ben shortly after because he lives so close to Sally.

Anna usually argued with Ben, but he was pretty nice when they were playing a video game together or she had any tech-based questions.

She also liked Sally's father, Sam Lindermann. He was somewhat strict, but kind and always wore really handsome-looking black suits that he had to ask to be made special for him because he's so tall.

Still, she didn't like how Ben kept thinking she was stupid. She turned on her heel and glared at him while putting her fists on her hips like mommy does when she's upset.

"They do so exist! Mommy even saw him!" She insisted.

Ben rolled his eyes. "Pfff. Whatever."

Sally decided to break the tension. "So, Anna, what's in the bag?"

Anna's anger quickly melted into a 5-year-old form of pride and accomplishment. "I thought of it! The ghost was wearing a T-shirt, but no coat. I figured he wouldn't have a coat and would be cold 'cause it's getting Winter."

Sally smiled, inwardly wondering if ghosts could get cold in the first place. "So, you got him a coat?"

Anna shook her head. "No. I saw all the big kids wearing those coats with the pockets and the hoods like Ben's, so I asked mommy to buy one of them."

She reached into the bag and pulled out a solid black hoodie with some toxic green and white accents. It was the kind you'd find in a skater shop or punk shop, but Sally thought it looked pretty good. Though, she wondered how the Mrs. Burton was convinced to buy it.

Ben snickered. "Oh my God, you actually bought it! You got a freakin' hoodie for a ghost! HAHAHAHA!"

Anna scrunched her face as hard as she could, but the small tears and magenta shading of her face betrayed her attempts to not look upset. Sally foresaw the temper tantrum and bopped Ben on the head.

"OW! Hey, that hurt!"

Sally quickly ignored him and turned to Anna. "So, Anna, where's that haunted house, again?"

Anna's face reduced to a rosy pink and she huffed as she led them to the end of her street. Sally and Ben stifled a shudder when they got to 613.

Sally had to admit, if ghosts did exist, that was certainly where she'd expect to find them. The house's windows were mostly shattered on the lower level, but the upper level seemed mostly intact. The little bit of lawn was overgrown and weedy. The most interesting thing was a large saucer on the top.

Anna smirked at their faces before confidently walking to the front door and taking on a "feature presentation" stance with her arms gesturing to the entire property.

"Lady and Boogerbreath ("Hey!") I present to you… The Specter House!"

Sally's eyes widened slightly. Even though she was in the next town over, she'd still heard stories about the famous Specter House. She'd never have guessed her foster-little-sister would be living just a few doors down from the most infamous haunted house in the county.

Ben put on his stoic-9-year-old face, but was pretty much shaking in his boots on the inside. _It's OK, Ben. It's fine. It's just a creepy house. If ghosts actually existed, and I'm not saying they do, you've defeated them with a vacuum cleaner before. Even if it was a game, the concept is the same. You'll be fine._

Anna didn't notice either of these and opened the creaky door to the house.

First thing they noticed was the layers of dust everywhere. The furniture was jumbled around and broken with small bits still charred from whatever took out the rest of the house. Anna whimpered at the spiderwebs around everything, but kept going in.

"Look!" Sally exclaimed. She pointed towards the floor where footsteps overlapped each other going up the stairwell to the second floor along with a few older ones in general.

Ben sweated a bit. "So? It's probably just a looter or some hobo that got in. We shouldn't be here if people like that are here. C'mon." He started walking towards the exit when Anna bolted up the stairs.

"Anna!" Sally and Ben rushed after her. The second floor wasn't big, so they found her at the end of the hall, looking in on a room. They caught up to her, but she didn't notice.

Sally looked around the room and was immediately drawn to a figure lying away from them on an old bed. He had to be about 13 or 14. He had messy black hair and a white shirt and jeans.

For a while, no one talked. They just stared apprehensively at the figure lying prone on the bed.

"What do you want?" The figure muttered.

The three kids jumped at the voice. Ben stuttered, "H-how did you know w-we were here?"

The figure snorted softly. "Well, three kids running around my old house isn't exactly quiet."

Sally's eyebrows lifted. "_Your_ old house?"

"Yeah. I live here. Well, actually, I guess I lived here."

Ben's curiosity bolstered a bit of courage. "Lived here? You mean you moved away? I thought no one lived here for, like, 20 years or something."

"30, actually." The figure replied monotonously.

Ben and Sally frowned in mild confusion. They didn't notice that Anna had moved right by the figure until she was practically a foot away.

"Mr. Ghost?" She said softly.

The figure didn't reply. Anna continued despite the other two making frantic gestures for her to come back.

"I thought you might be cold, so I got you something." The bag crinkled softly as she held it up.

After a few seconds, the figure shifted and faced them. Sally and Ben were surprised. They could confirm he was around 14 and he was pale with really sad, blue eyes that glanced over to them before focusing back on Anna.

He slowly reached over and picked up the small gift offering, reaching in and pulling out the hoodie. He held it up and looked at it for a moment before smiling slightly and whispering. "Thanks."

He placed the gift next to him on the bed and looked back at the trio. Ben's apprehension dropped pretty quickly when he got a closer look at the guy.

"You're not a ghost. Ghosts are transparent and float around and stuff. You look pretty solid and you touched the hoodie. Ghosts can't do that."

The teenager smirked. "Well, actually ghosts can touch things. Most just don't. As for your first comment-"

The teenager stood up and began fading away. Not entirely, but enough that they could see the sunset through the window behind him while making out his outline. Grinning at how the other boy's jaw gaped, he jumped in the air and flew around the ceiling a few times before settling back down.

"How's that?" He asked confidently.

Ben could only nod dumbly. Sally was awestruck at what she saw. Anna only clapped happily at the display.

Sally was the first of the two older kids to gather her wits. "So… you're the Specter House ghost?"

He nodded. "Yeah, my name's Danny."

"My name's Anna!" The cheerful 5-year-old chirped.

"Sally."

"B-Ben."

Ben looked around before gathering some courage. "B-but if you're the Specter House ghost, I thought you k-killed people or dragged them away somewhere."

Danny's eyebrow quirked. "No. I've never killed anyone that I know of. I heard that rumor about the looter. Not sure if it's true or not. I only just got here a week ago."

Sally was confused. "A week? Where were you before then? I thought all ghosts just stuck around haunting places."

"No. Ghosts actually end up in a place called the Ghost Zone. The only way a ghost can actually get over is through natural portals to this world. I only got through last week."

"So, you don't want to eat our souls?" Ben blurted out.

Danny chuckled. He replied with a mock-evil tone. "Oh, of course I do. After all, I am the evil ghosty-goo. Fear me! Bwahahaha!"

Anna snickered as he made mockingly creepy-claw hands. Danny dissolved into quiet snickers as well and Ben and Sally both visibly relaxed after deciding he wasn't a threat.

Sally first started up the conversation. "So, what do you do around here as a ghost?"

Danny looked upward in thought. "Not much, really. I mean, I'm able to go outside, so I don't really do a whole lot around here other than sleep if I want. Even then, I don't _need_ it. It's just kinda nice."

Ben spoke, "Oh, so you were sleeping when we walked in?"

Danny's excitement quickly faded. "No." He mumbled. "I was actually sort of moping a while ago."

Anna, sensing a not-happy-feeling, quickly interrupted with her five-year-old understanding that any not-happy-feeling needs to be shared with other people. "What's wrong? Why are you sad?"

The older kids knew enough to be slightly more respectful, though their expressions betrayed curiosity as well.

Danny sighed before speaking. "Well, I'm not really 'sad'. There really isn't anything I can do and being sad isn't going to do much. It's just sort of a really big emotional thing to take in. I guess it's just hard to accept or something."

The older pair had slightly more emotional experience, but couldn't quite understand the emotional complications of puberty.

The younger one didn't get it at all.

"What do you mean? Are you sad or happy or angry or surprised or… or…" Anna paused. Her preschool teacher didn't make a "Mr. Face's Emotions" card for what this sounded like.

Danny chuckled slightly at her confusion before shaking his head. "No. It's not that. I guess the best emotion for it is; I'm sad."

Anna looked at him expectantly before asking the inevitable question. "Why?"

Danny looked pensively at a crack in the wall before answering. "Well, I kinda remembered how I died recently."

Ben cocked his head to one side. "You didn't remember before?"

Danny shook his head. "No. Most ghosts don't. It's not really something we like to remember or relive."

The two older kids nodded, understanding at least some degree of it.

Danny sighed. "Well, it's honestly not like I could've done anything about it. Really, I still can't do anything about it. It's happened and there's no changing that. I'm just sorting through the emotions that come with it right now."

Anna was still confused. _How many emotions can people have? Oh no, does that mean we have a lot more cards Ms. Smithson is going to show us?_

Sally took the initiative and broke the small silence. "Well, we'll leave you to it."

She took Anna's hand and nudged Ben towards the door. As they left, Anna took a look behind her.

"Bye, Danny."

The ghost smiled. "Bye."

When the trio stepped out of the now-confirmed-to-be-haunted house the sun was already setting and the sky took on the usual panorama of colors, though muted from autumn.

Walking down the street, they thought in silence about everything that happened. They stopped when they heard a scream from one of the houses. A new woman to the neighborhood ran straight out of her house being pursued by flying moving-in boxes.

The kids didn't have time to process this as their attention was drawn to a loud shout from the front door of the house.

"BEWARE!"

* * *

><p>Back in the room upstairs, Danny looked at the gift. He'd really been in a funk since yesterday, but it really helped to talk about it.<p>

When he thought about it, there wasn't really anything to be sad about. There's no fear of death anymore if he knew what was on the other side. Plus, it wasn't like he couldn't live anymore. Heck, he's living right now.

He snickered as he remembered the boy's face- Ben, he remembered- as he pulled off his partial-invisibility trick. He'd have to remember that one.

Still smiling, he put the hoodie down and put the Meyers bag in the corner to throw away in his neighbor's trash (it's not like they notice the occasional candy wrapper or scratch piece of paper suddenly ending up in their bins).

He laid back on his squeaky spring bed and looked at the ceiling. He'd moped for pretty much the past 24 hours and it got him nowhere. He couldn't go back and not be dead (and he was pretty sure Clockwork wouldn't let that happen either) nor could he do anything about his situation now.

Still, Anna and her friends really helped lift his… well, spirits. The visit was definitely nice. Unexpected, yeah, but nice.

He suddenly shuddered as his body felt cold. Starting from the center of his chest. He gasped as it reached his throat and was surprised to see a blue mist come out. '_What the-?'_

He was brought out of his thoughts by someone (scratch that, multiple "someones") screaming. He rushed to the window that showed the front yard. Anna, Sally, and Ben were running away from a pudgy blue man in overalls and a knit-cap floating after them with a trail of boxes hovering close by.

_Boxy?_ He wondered. He knew the guy pretty well. While he wasn't the most terrifying apparition in the Ghost Zone, he was a bit of a nuisance. The only question was, how did he get here?

Danny was about to rush over, when he realized that Boxy had seen him as Danny Phantom and there were probably four or five other neighbors who were staring at the scene who would either recognize him or learn through the grapevine that he was the new kid Danny Fenton.

He started thinking of a quick plan, but nothing was coming to mind. He felt compelled to help the kids, but he couldn't just rush in without thinking.

His eyes fell on his new hoodie and he grinned. He flipped to Phantom Mode and pulled the black hoodie over his jumpsuit top and flipped the hood over his hair. The shadow from the hood covered his hair and upper part of his face, but left his chin and mouth exposed.

Satisfied it would do the trick, he turned intangible and flew through the wall after the terrified kids and the slightly scary ghost. He landed on the ground a few feet from the chase.

"Hey… uh, Stop!" Dang it, he needed to work on his witty banter.

The Box Ghost turned around and saw the newcomer. He didn't waste time missing introductions. "Beware hooded one! For I am the master of all that is square and cubical! I am the Box Ghost! Fear me!"

Danny feigned surprise. "Oh, wow! A ghost?"

Boxy grinned triumphantly. "Yes, mortal! I am a terrifying apparition from beyond! Beware!"

Danny smirked. "Well, what a coincidence." He started floating a few feet in the air. "So am I."

The Box Ghost stared wide-eyed at Danny before gritting his teeth and raising his arms. The boxes around him stopped chasing the three kids and started rocketing towards the ghostly teen.

Sadly, while Danny's aim with his ecto blasts was pretty good, his reflexes left a lot to be desired.

He was knocked backwards by the oncoming boxes and landed a few streets down. People out shopping, chatting, or walking stopped as the hooded figure landed from the sky with a few crumpled boxes and various, broken knick-knacks strewn around him.

Before they could take in this sight, they were greeted by a "BEWARE"-ing blue man floating in mid air.

Danny got up and dusted himself off. "Okay, note to self-" he muttered under his breath, "turn intangible when boxes are barreling towards you."

He looked up at Boxy, but the cube-obsessed ghost had already flown through a window to a shop called-

_Aunt Beatrice's Box Emporium_.

"Oh, come ON!" He exclaimed.

The roof of the emporium erupted and a multitude of boxes flew out. Apparently Aunt Beatrice stocked everything from large, heavy wooden crates to lacy, frilly Valentine's Day boxes. Danny could admire the craftsmanship later… when said craftsmanship wasn't heading towards him at the acceleration and approximate weight of a speeding truck.

He managed to dodge the first few boxes, but got nailed in the gut with a particularly dense Airplane Black Box. Seriously!? What kind of shop has those things?! They're not even boxes! Heck, they're not even black most of the time!

Even so, the Airplane a-lot-more-orange-than-black not-a-box did a number on him and sent him backwards where he was buried under a pile of thankfully-not-as-heavy cardboard boxes.

_DUH!_ He mentally berated himself. He turned intangible and drifted out of the pile of cardboard. Another onslaught of "cubical terror" was heading for him, but this time he figured it out and turned intangible for them to pass safely through him.

By now, a large amount of spectators gathered around to see the two figures floating and fighting. A lot of the younger generation brought out those popular black rectangles and kept pointing them at the two.

Danny was too distracted by the weird action that he completely missed the set of boxing gloves (Seriously? Now they're just stretching it!) that smacked him in the jaw and sent him flying backwards.

He regained his senses enough to phase through the wall he was about to go through. He finished his graceful arc through air, brick, concrete, and drywall by smacking onto the tile floors of his parents' Basement Lab.

He groaned as he sat up, blinking stars out of his peripheral vision. He looked upwards as the Box Ghost phased through the wall. The deceased warehouse worker raised his arms and a few storage boxes of his parents' started shakily rising in the air. One split open and a multitude of technology fell out.

Danny's attention was drawn to a small can-like object that rolled towards him. Not having a better plan, he picked it up and awkwardly pointed it at Boxy.

"HA! How can you defeat me and my hexahedrons of doom with your pitiful cylindrical devaaaAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Danny accidentally hit something on the cylinder and a bright beam of blue shot out of the end. Boxy got caught in the beam and was sucked into the cylinder like a vacuum. Danny panicked as he held the still-beaming-device in his hand until he found the lid that got knocked off and capped it on top of the can.

The boxes, without Boxy's influence there to sustain it, lost their levitation and crashed to the ground. Danny winced, hoping none of his parents' inventions got broken in the fall.

He held up the smoking canister and looked it over. He found a small imprint on the side of it. _Fenton Thermos__ (TM)_. He snickered. Even in life, his parents named everything after themselves.

He turned the device over in his hands and found a small button on the side. Curiosity getting the better of him, he pointed the "fwooshing" end of the thermos away from him and pressed the button.

The cap came off again and a blue light erupted from the top along with the pudgy form of the Box Ghost. Boxy blinked confusedly around him before focusing back on the figure with the canister.

"YOU! How dare you imprison me, The Box Ghost, in that cylindrical device of aaaaAAAAAAHHHH NOT AGAAAAIIIINNN!"

Danny clicked the other button and the blue stream powered on again, sucking Boxy back in before he capped the beam.

_At least I know this is safe for them. I don't want to destroy the poor guy_. He thought.

He carefully set the thermos on a counter and looked around at the boxes' contents that had strewn around when they came down. A lot of the inventions had a chrome-like sheen to them with green bits of tech here and there and a green "Fenton" logo that looked like it was surrounded by some kind of green flame pattern.

He picked them up and read the tags on a few of them.

"'The Jack o' Nine Tails'? 'Fenton Peeler'? 'Ecto-Dejecto?'"

He picked up another weird looking device.

"The Ghost Gabber?"

"_The Ghost Gabber. I am a ghost. Fear me._" Said a mechanically monotone voice. Danny didn't know whether to jump in surprise or laugh at the ridiculousness of the device. He found the small switch and flipped it off.

Deciding to play around with the inventions later, he picked up the thermos with a live… well… dead ghost inside. "Okay. Now what do I do with you?"

He figured Boxy just got lucky and found some natural portal. They were rare, yeah, but not unheard of. Thankfully, he knew a place where there was a not-so-natural portal.

He turned invisible and intangible and flew through the walls of his house. The streets below him were crowded with people still searching for the mysterious figures. He spotted the trio among them, looking around frightened. Even Ben was visibly shaking.

He floated down towards them. The trio along with some adults nearby gasped as one of the figures fighting earlier suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Anna recognized the hoodie and hopped with excitement. "Danny!" She squealed.

Danny put his finger to his lips in a "shhh"-ing gesture, winking conspiratorially at her (his glowing green eyes helped them identify it as a wink even with his face covered).

Anna put her hands to her mouth and giggled. "Oops. I mean. Thank you, Mr. Ghost!"

He smiled as the trio caught on. "Don't mention it. It was actually really fun." He leaned in closer to whisper. "And thanks for the disguise."

Anna beamed that her idea came in handy, but Sally broke in, "What about that weird floaty guy we saw? What happened to him?"

Danny took out the thermos and shook it. "Got 'im"

Ben's eyes widened. "Woah, what kinda thing is that?"

The halfa shrugged. "No clue. I hit it by accident and it just sorta caught him like a vacuum."

Ben's mind overloaded at that. _Oh my God! Vacuums _do_ catch ghosts! Oh, Luigi I am so sorry I ever doubted you and called you Green-Mario!_

Sally, oblivious to Ben's internal epiphany, addressed Danny. "So, is this going to be something regular now? You fighting ghosts and being the superhero?"

The three kids (and a few adults within earshot) looked at the figure expectantly. He smiled and said "Yeah, I guess I am."

He started rising to prepare to fly towards the portal but was stopped by a loud "Wait!"

He turned around. Ben was blushing furiously at the attention his outburst caused, but kept going. "W-what do you want to be called? I mean, every superhero's gotta have a cool name."

Danny was surprised. He actually hadn't thought about it. He looked upward in thought for a second. He wanted something cool, but he couldn't use his full ghost name, the ghosts in the Ghost Zone already knew Danny Phantom… but it was a cool name…

"Phantom." He decided. The kids nodded and watched him fly off towards the cemetery.

The three kids stood around as the adults started yammering about the figure to each other. Anna cleared her throat loudly causing Ben and Sally to look at her.

She had her smug look on.

"I told you ghosts were real."

* * *

><p>When Boxy came to, he was in the familiar green of the Ghost Zone again. He recognized the area as being somewhere between Pandora's and the Phantom's Lairs. As memories started coming back, so did his mild irritation (because with Boxy, there wasn't really "rage"). "Curse you, Hooded Figure! I will find you and I will destroy you with my geometric shapes of evil!"<p>

He was interrupted by a sudden crackle of energy around him. Suddenly, another portal opened up not 5 meters away from him. He was suspicious and didn't go into it. He watched as it closed back up and was like it never happened. Not 10 seconds later did another portal suddenly rip open about 15 meters away. For a while, he stood there, watching the portals open and close.

There was no real pattern and they seemed to be pretty far away from each other and their times were pretty sporadic, but there was no denying; that 1/1000 chance of finding a portal diminished quickly.

He smirked, rushing off to tell his friends… well, acquaintances… well, people-that-could-put-up-with-him-for-five-minutes-without-blasting-him-through-their-lair-walls.

And so, he flew off in the general direction of Ember, Skulker, Klemper, and, surprisingly, Clockwork.

* * *

><p>In a tower filled with moving gears and ticking noises, a cloaked old man looked at few glowing screens showing a figure in a black hoodie heading back to his home for school tomorrow and a certain, blue, cube-obsessed ghost heading towards his tower.<p>

He knew what the ghost was going to say, but it was inevitable that he would come here. He always knew.

Clockwork grinned, satisfied, as he murmured to himself. "Everything is as it should be."

* * *

><p><strong>So, yeah. That's how Danny's going to fight ghosts. A third identity. I know a lot of people probably expected something else, but think about it.<strong>

**The humans already know him as Danny Fenton and the ghosts already know him as Danny Phantom. He can't use one or the other without the ghosts figuring it out and pretty much ruining the series. Part of the main purpose of the Danny Phantom series is that people around him **_**don't know squat**_**.**

**And cluelessness. Never forget the apparent lack of clues and step-by-step logic for most of the characters in the series (seriously, Fenton. Phantom. Danny. How many "Danny"s are there in Amity Park?).**

**My other idea was to have him fight ghosts in human form, but that didn't seem as exciting as he wouldn't have all of his powers and be significantly weaker. Of course, there was also the fact that the humans around him would recognize him. Again, I want the people around him (living or dead) to know squat.**

**To anyone thinking this; no. Jack and Maddie did ****not**** die… or die again…or… something. The explosion was just a source of comedy. Also, the portal is still up and running, the explosion didn't harm it.**

**I know I've dragged in the Burtons and three new OCs, but they won't be terribly standard characters. OCs like Ben, Sally, Mr. Linderman, the Burtons, etc. are either one-shot characters that will prompty cease to exist or just recurring OCs for small side-plots (though, with the amount of detail and background to Anna, Ben, and Sally, be sure to expect them to come back every now and then).**

**Most of my OCs probably won't feature too much in any of the main arcs, but it's nice to have some different characters around the town. There's only so much you can do with the characters given in Danny Phantom and that's even counting the nondescript classmates and background characters. Eventually, you have to make your own to fill out the story more.**

**I apologize to 13BlueBananas if Sally and Ben were slightly OOC, but there isn't really a "set" personality for either of them. Also, every version of Sally I've come across seems to fit more to a 5 or 6 year old than any of my 8 year old cousins. Plus, I don't think her more canon version would be terribly appropriate for this fic. Can't have 8 year olds murdering people left, right, and center, now can we?**

**Props to those who get the hint from the names Ben Wasser and Sam Lindermann. (Hint: Translate one name and remove two letters from one of the first names).**

**I hope you enjoyed this installment.**

**And let me say;**

**It's great to be back.**

**Sincerely,**

**The Smiling Crow**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello everyone.**

**It's getting to be that time of the year. Finals, Midterms, Essays, etc. I'm just thankful I've been working in advance when I have some free time.**

**Believe it or not, but this is actually a lot better stress relief than most other forms of entertainment I'm used to (i.e. reading other fanfictions, youtube, listening to music, etc.). Plus, right after I'm finished typing up my Chemistry Report, I can go to the Word next tab over and start writing this.**

**I don't own Danny Phantom.**

**-Crow**

* * *

><p>Technology is amazing isn't it? People these days take it for granted, but when you stop and think about it, it really is amazing. In an instant, you can communicate with someone all the way across the planet. You can send a message across the globe in a matter of hours-<p>

Or you can send multiple videos of a ghost fight across a small town in under 10 minutes.

Within the hour, everyone in Amity Park (and spreading to the next few towns over) was talking about the sudden appearance of the Reddit-dubbed "Inviso-Bill". Chat rooms of Casper High Students were littered with the gossip acquired from eye witnesses or eavesdropping on parents' conversations.

The conversations continued through the night until daybreak when a multitude of tired, but still-gossiping teenagers trudged into school. As the familiar cliques formed, everyone voiced opinions on the newest development.

The teenage superhero, "Inviso-Bill".

Jocks joked around about convincing him to join the football team. Nerds argued his stats and had a dice-and-card game up and running by 3rd period. Meanwhile, essentially every single girl in school was tripping over themselves in a love-struck daze at the thought of being the Louis Lane or M.J. Watson to the superhero that suddenly sprung up in their town.

Thankfully, Star Celeste was neither single nor dissatisfied with her boyfriend, Kwan Ishiyama. She rolled her eyes at her peers' insanity and decided against using the bathroom when she saw every girl lined up against the mirrors, gossiping about the newest addition to the town.

She walked along the hall and quickly stowed away her _Advanced Linear Algebra_ textbook in her locker before anyone noticed the title under a few random Teen fashion magazines she picked up. Thankfully, Paulina never noticed she just rotated them around every week, making it look like a new one that some designer decided to go "retro" on.

Star was actually amazed that "retro" was defined as anything two or more weeks old in the fashion industry.

She made her way down the hall and saw Kwan in the rare state of not-being-hounded-on-by-Dash. She approached him with a simple "Hey, champ."

He turned around and smiled. "Hey there, _Ester_." He teased.

She furrowed into mock anger before lightly slugging his arm. Her real name was Ester, but since it meant "star", it wasn't that hard of a jump.

"So, no Dash?"

Kwan shook his head. "No, he'd have texted me if he was sick or pretending to be. I think he's just late. What about Paulina?"

Star shrugged. "I think she's in the biomass that's accumulated in the girls' bathroom."

The second-in-command-jock raised an eyebrow. "OK, explain, please. I got some pretty weird imagery from that."

Star laughed. "Every girl on this floor is in the girls' bathroom right now gossiping in front of the mirror."

"Why do you girls do that anyway?"

"No clue. Anyway, they're all compacted in that one area, so I think it's safe to say they've become conjoined as a singular biomass rather than individual people. My guess would be that Paulina is right at the center, hogging the biggest portion of mirror she can find."

Kwan nodded in agreement. Contrary to belief, they actually weren't airheads, obsessed with looks, or even rich. They met Dash and Paulina in grade school before things like popularity and looks started mattering. They ended up becoming so close friends with their respective clique leaders that they didn't have anyone else to really go to. Rather than face the awkwardness and loneliness of leaving the bullies, they toughed out the rumors and bullying to spend time with them. Not terribly _quality_ time, but it was time nonetheless.

They met each other through the "alpha wolves" Dash and Paulina when the two "Populars" started dating. A-listers were just like a pack of wolves. They were definitely top-of-the-food-chain compared to the others, but like any wolf pack, there was an alpha leader.

Kwan and Star were both considered second-tier satellites for their respective alphas. Spending a lot of time in the alpha's shadow meant they met each other a lot. One thing led to another, and now they had a pretty good boyfriend/girlfriend thing going on.

Star continued talking with her boyfriend. "So, what do you think about the whole Inviso-Bill thing? I only read the Reddit blogs this morning."

Kwan shrugged noncommittally. "I dunno. At first, I thought it was some hoax, but everyone was talking about it and the videos are all authentic. One guy even showed me the recording he took on his phone. No photoshopping. So, I guess it is a sort of superhero, I'm just not sure it's a ghost."

Star 'hmmed' in thought. "Well, if he was a ghost, where would you think he'd be hiding?"

"A lot of people are saying he's from Specter House. It makes sense. Everyone knows the place is haunted."

Star nodded, but furrowed her brow in thought. "Yeah, but if the ghost was there, and I'm not saying it's haunted or even that ghosts exist, why start up now? Why not ten years ago or something? I just think we're overlooking some-"

"STAAAARRRRR!" said a shrill voice. She groaned slightly. Kwan made an apologetic face before scampering away from the temperamental clique leader. Star didn't blame him. She'd run too if she could.

She sighed before putting on her "happy, dumb blonde" mask and turned to the Latina queen bee of the school.

"Star, guess what. We're totally going to find that ghost boy!" Paulina squealed.

Star smiled and nodded, but dreaded the response as Paulina continued. "So, we figured it out. It's obvious this ghost is somewhere in town. So, what's the only haunted building in town?"

Star smirked on the inside, but kept her face passive as she played dumb. She looked slightly upwards and ticked off locations on her fingers as she spoke. "Well, there's that concert hall where that wannabe rock diva died in the fire, the school counselor's office where that psychiatrist woman hung herself after her first wrinkle, the kitchens where that lunch lady had a heart attack-"

"Oh, come on, Star. You know! We're going to the Specter House! I got one of those losers to go to this really creepy shop downtown and get a Ouija board. We're going tonight to get the ghost boy to admit that he loves me." Paulina swooned and Star could practically see the small hearts floating around the Latina's head like tiny planets.

Star saw that coming a mile away. Paulina was determined to avoid an "inferior" husband and focused on whatever the next biggest trophy-spouse would be. It was pretty much guaranteed that a real superhero outmatched anything other high school boys could offer. Even if said superhero was possibly dead.

Still, she couldn't find any reason to refute the idea and Paulina knew she didn't have anything going on tonight. Still, it wasn't a total loss. It actually sounded like fun.

"Alright, I'm in." she replied. Paulina smiled and strutted off, leaving boys' tongues on the floor in her wake.

* * *

><p>A few hours after school ended that day, Star and Kwan walked together down Specter Street where they met the other A-listers and a few excited B-listers in front of the run-down house. The sun was just starting to set and the temperature dropped drastically.<p>

Dash and Paulina stood out prominently in the group. Dash had on his signature I'll-beat-the-crap-out-of-anything-that-tries-to-steal-my-girl scowl. Paulina ignored her jealous soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend (she wouldn't make it official until after she had the ghost boy). Tucked under her arm was a wooden Ouija Board set. She waved cheerily (and with a Barbie-Doll-fake smile) at the two as they came closer.

"You guys ready? Tonight is going to be amazing!" She squealed. Star rolled her eyes as soon as the Latina turned around.

Dash, putting on his brave-boyfriend/jock face, led the way as they crossed the overgrown lawn to the charred front door.

Given the situation, Star suddenly felt chills. A group of teenagers are going into a supposedly haunted house. A popular girl who's a grade-A rhymes-with-witch; an equally popular and stupidly pig-headed jock; a strong, compassionate athlete; the less-pretty-but-still-attractive-even-if-she-was-smart main character; and she was pretty sure that one of the B-Listers tagging along was a classic stoner. She'd watched enough horror movies on dates with Kwan to know that at the first "let's split up", she was going to bail.

Back outside Star's mind, Dash opened the door with a noisy creak. Everyone cautiously moved inside the burnt-out remains of the house. The rumors were true that no looters took anything. A few photos were still hung on the wall, even if their glass was fogged over with dust and age.

One of the background characters sneezed from the dust and Star swore she heard a small *bump* from upstairs. Looking around, no one else seemed to have heard it, so she chalked it up as nerves. _Better to ignore it than to say it out loud and look like the crazy one._ Star said.

She widened her eyes in sudden realization. _Oh God. That's just what happens in the movies. The one who sees or hears something keeps mum even with half the audience screaming at her to tell._

Still, despite her revelation on the psychology of the horror movie character, she kept her silence. _This isn't a horror movie. This is real life. We're just going to play a game, read out some jumbled nonsense from a mass-produced board game, and leave_.

Paulina led them to the broken and slightly singed remains of a coffee table and set up the board game. She took out an ornate, wood and gold-embossed planchette from inside. Star was impressed. Even if the gold was probably just paint, the detail on the small piece was very precise. This one was probably not one of the Hasbro's.

Paulina looked up at everyone with her challenging don't-you-dare-chicken-out-on-me eyes. "Alright everyone. Are you ready?"

A few of the background characters murmured their consent. Star nodded, but noted that the room seemed to get 10 degrees colder. She counted it as a draft from outside making everything really cold, but it kept niggling around her mind like a worm.

Paulina closed her eyes and took a deep breath like she'd seen her psychic do a thousand times before starting up anything in the spirit world. "Everyone, put your hands on the planchette."

Dash scrunched his face. "The wooden triangle thing?"

"Yes, the 'wooden triangle thing'! Just do it already!" Said an irate Paulina. Dash quickly complied along with Star and Kwan. A few others managed to fit around the board, but the rest just stood around it, nervously glancing around the room.

Paulina stopped glaring at Dash and cleared her throat before starting up. "Ohhh, spirit of ghost boy. Please lend us your ears badly decomposed though they may be."

Star swore she heard a quiet, but indignant 'hey' from somewhere in the room. She looked around, but again it seemed no one aside from her noticed.

Paulina kept going. "We wish for you to make your presence known."

The group waited with baited breath for the first contact.

"_Kshshshktchshshshtchtchhshhhh!"_

The group jumped and looked around the room for the source of the static. Everyone's eyes fell on an old radio set in the corner that had mostly stayed intact in whatever accident happened here. The dial glowed, indicating a working tube, but the receiver inside had long since been destroyed, so it only picked up a lot of static.

Paulina's eyes hardened with determination as she figured that was the "presence" she had requested. Not two minutes in and her soon-to-be-boyfriend was already so accommodating.

Star, being closest to the set, got up to switch off the radio.

"_Kshshshsshshshhstchthtchkg-kkshsshhshthchhgo-shchtkcthshshshhhshhhgoawa-_"

She flipped off the speaker set before she registered the last bit of the static. The message was relatively quiet, so she doubted the others heard it over the white noise. Still, she could practically see this becoming the next Based-on-a-True-Story Hollywood movie. Right next to _Blair Witch Project_ and _Amityville Horror_.

She shuddered; _Amity Park Horror_. Suddenly, she had second thoughts about living in this town.

She sat back down in the circle. Everyone was tense except for Paulina, who seemed anxious to start back up. As soon as Star settled, the Latina A-Lister continued. "Ghost boy. We wish you to send us a message through this spirit board!"

They waited a few seconds. Star was about to give up on this when she heard a quiet snicker to her right. She felt the room get noticeably colder again and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She suddenly felt the planchette move under her. Paulina was excited. "Look everybody! Ghost boy does want me!"

The planchette moved left…then right… then left, then right, then left, then right. It kept going faster and faster and more forceful until it wasn't even on the letters. Star let go along with everyone else at the board and the planchette stopped.

Then it slowly moved on its own.

She heard several people gasp and felt her blood run cold. The planchette paused. G-

Paulina's eyes were shining with anticipation. E-

Dash was sweating bullets. This was something he couldn't punch his way out of. T-

O-U-T.

Star paled at the message as the planchette repeated itself. G-E-T-O-U-T-G-E-T-O-U-T-G-E-T-O-U-T.

Paulina was miffed more than scared. "Why ghost boy, I thought you wanted me." She struck a seductive pose.

The planchette flew off of the board and clattered against the floor. Before anyone could think to go over and get it, the floor started shaking violently and arcs of blue electricity flew through the air between the walls.

Star sat up along with everyone else and listened as a horrible screaming started, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

The furniture and walls ignited in an ethereal blue flame that quickly spread around the group. Within seconds the entire place was on fire. On instinct, Star put her arm up to protect her face, but was surprised that the fire neither hurt nor was hot. It felt more like dry ice mist than anything else; creepy and cold, but not necessarily harmful.

Still, she followed the panicking group as they ran outside to the street. The terrified teenagers didn't stop until they were panting on the sidewalk on the opposite side. Blue fire was flaring out of the windows and a few holes in the walls. The screaming still echoed from somewhere inside. A few people covered their ears to block the sound.

Then suddenly, it stopped.

The fire was gone, there weren't any scorch marks that weren't there before and there wasn't even smoke. The screaming didn't even echo into the evening.

It was like it had never even happened.

The only indication of anything was the front door slightly ajar.

The door slowly closed by itself with a drawn-out creak and a soft 'click'.

Clearly shaken, Dash whispered to Paulina. "S-so, you still want to be with this guy?"

Paulina turned to her ex-boyfriend in fury. "No way! This guy was obviously not the ghost boy. That rude ghost is probably just upset about something. Don't worry, I'll find ghost boy one of these days." She swaggered off, still on her high horse even after the brush with death.

Star felt a hand on her shoulder and saw Kwan look at her, then the house. She followed his gaze and saw a figure in the window. It was silhouetted from behind by some fading sunlight from another window. She could make out some baggy clothes and a messy haircut.

She raised her hand to wave.

And the figure waved back.

She smiled knowingly and walked away with her boyfriend as they headed home for the fast-approaching night.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I liked this chapter. It was one of my originals and I felt like the séance was fun. Don't worry, I plan to have a few more instances of "unwanted guests" for Danny to deal with in future chapters.<strong>

**For those who were wondering, Danny did not suddenly gain an obscene amount of OOC powers. I just tweaked the ectoplasmic lights to a larger scale, giving the impression that the house was on fire.**

**As for the screaming, I think it'd be like a low-level-Danny-doesn't-know-it-exists-yet Wail. It can't do any damage, but it's still got effect to it.**

**The rest is just the go-invisible-and-do-stuff kind of "ghostliness".**

**Yes, I hope for Kwan and Star to be recurring characters. Not major plot-driving characters most of the time, but still influential characters.**

**I know they'll probably be horrifically OOC, but who knows. In the canon, there's not too much screen time/character development around the two. They very well could be smart, nice people that just made the wrong friends. I also enjoy the concept of Star being secretly brilliant, but dumbing it down to mess with Paulina. It's so much more fun to write.  
><strong>

**And as much as I enjoy the Danny x Star ship every now and then, I liked the Star x Kwan relationship a lot better, plus it seemed more plausible given the canon. So, no; Danny will not have/pursue a relationship with Star. To be honest, I'm not sure if there will be ships for a while. Maybe a bit of Danny x Sam if/when she finds out.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this installment.**

**Until next time.**

**Sincerely,**

**-Crow**


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